Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail)

I join Senator Ulick Burke in calling for a debate on the BMW region. The underspend of €600 million is a disgrace, particularly when there are still many infrastructural deficiencies in the region. In line with this, it would be appropriate to have a debate on the progress of the national spatial strategy. To make it a success, legislation must be introduced to get all State and semi-State arms to respect the aspirations of the strategy as this has not been the case in the past. Recently, when Bord Gáis was before an Oireachtas committee, it proudly showed a map of the country with no Bord Gáis infrastructure and no plans to put it in the BMW region, almost like a gaping wound in the north west. Like the great British colonialists of old, it has no difficulty in stealing the west's resources from the Corrib gasfield and bringing them back to the motherland in Cork.