Joe O'Toole (Independent)

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Enterprise and Small Business received a disturbing report this morning about the Border, midlands and western, BMW, region. I called recently for debates on regional areas such as Kerry. The BMW includes the Leader's area. The report reaches disturbing conclusions, the most annoying of which is that every operational programme under the national development plan for that area has been underspent. The Department of Finance says this is because the National Roads Authority decided to prioritise the eastern region to deal with bottlenecks there and told the BMW region to go and whistle.

It is a disgrace that money is available but withdrawn because the regional authorities cannot get enough consultants or whoever they need to build the infrastructure. Someone should explain to us why this extraordinary situation has arisen in areas such as Mayo, north Galway and other places, including the Leader's area. There are other problems in the area such as brain drain. Is this happening throughout the country? Are there also projects in the Cork and Kerry region the funds for which are not being drawn down? What happens to the money at the end of the year? It is wrong that the money is not maintained in the region. We need to do something about it. The road plans in the west are moving on but they are three or four years behind. Why is this money not available? Why are more people not making noise about it? I would like to have a discussion on this issue. It is appalling that we are not dealing with it.

A report was issued recently to the effect that there are almost 300 cases pending against the Department of Education and Science on issues to do with education and educational rights and so on. There is something out of kilter when the Department and the Minister challenge every one of these. What is happening? I am sure some of those cases should be challenged but not every one of them. It puts people under serious pressure. I heard recently of a case in which the parents of an autistic child went to the High Court 29 times until they got approval for the support they wanted for the child to get primary level education. As soon as the child finished primary school they had to start the process again and are still going through it for post-primary education. That is cruel pressure.