Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

This is one of the problems that arises in this debate. It is a problem the Western Development Commission faces. Are we talking about the west as a geographic region? If we are, we are talking about Limerick city and Galway city, if we describe the west as covering the area from Donegal to Kerry. If we are, then parts of the region are growth areas, including Galway city. We must recognise that the west has an urban infrastructure as well as a rural infrastructure. If we are talking about rural Ireland, that would also include rural Wicklow. We must decide on the region before we have this debate. I make this point because often this aspect of the debate is foggy. A person may say nothing happens in the west and that there is no proper infrastructure in place, but if one responds that a motorway is being built as far as Limerick and Galway, the person will say that is not the west and that the motorway is not being built as far as Blacksod. We must decide what we are talking about in this debate before we can talk about a plan. Even though I would argue with some aspects of his report, Senator Doherty tried to examine the west as a region. We must acknowledge that urban areas are part of the west.

I was engaged in constituency work recently and a proposal was put forward for the building of a major windfarm that will not even be located on land. People seem to have big problems and are objecting. They have a legitimate right to do so and I respect that. Every time it is proposed to build a wind farm to harness wind energy, which would involve lines running overground, while people in the west do not really object to anything, they will want to put all cables underground or will come up with some solution that is not practical as it would involve a cost factor of ten times the proposed solution. I know of objections to the provision of a 110 kVA electricity generation project into Gweedore in Senator Doherty's county. I have seen objections to such a project in Connemara. If we are serious about developing the west, we have to accept we cannot have development without the laying of cables to carry the energy harnessed from natural resources to supply the whole country. We must have a reasonable debate as to what is our vision of the west and whether the people of the west really want the inconvenience of all these infrastructural developments. In my experience of development, we cannot have development without the putting in place of such infrastructure.

I was involved in the setting up of a timber mill, which subsequently became a very large mill. Approximately 600,000 tonnes of timber are transported from the mill, having regard to the timber that is brought to it and transported from it. I have to hand it to the people in my rural community, which is in an extremely rural area, who said they wanted the 200 jobs that would arise from this business and they would never say naught against the 600,000 tonnes of timber transported in the trucks to and from the mill. They asked for better roads and they were built, but the people never objected to such development. We must foster that type of spirit, as objections pose a major challenge to development.

I agree with community empowerment — that aspect was mentioned. If the Celtic tiger had never visited rural Ireland, we would not have a downturn in the economy, but it visited every part of this country, including the islands. Every public servant in this country got the same wage rises that were buoyed up by the Celtic tiger. Private sector wages rose in all the regions and that created its own challenges. Glib comments have been made that we need to further debate.

Senator Doherty raised the debate beyond the usual rural debate about the closing of post offices. It is mentioned in the report but I am serious in saying that I am glad the debate did not descend to defending a past that is killing itself because young people will not use post offices. The Senator addressed the issue not on a parochial level but on a much bigger level. I liked his approach. However, I warn against a number of things. I heard the Senator talk of the Minister with responsibility for regional development and so on. We need to tease out what is the function of that person. Does he or she have total control over education or health? In other words, is he or she a mini-government? The State is organised on this sectional system. It is something we have to examine. I am very worried about regional impact statements and regional impact assessments. We carry out rural proofing. However, I know what happens to all such documents. Somebody is given the task of writing the document and will give whatever answer is wanted to justify that every region has been looked after. The Senator knows that and I know that, and we have seen thousands of these documents written. I would rather work my politics dynamically and in the hustle and bustle, because when many of these documents are published people do not have time to read them.

I am not very interested in proofing. There are many types of proofing, such as gender-proofing, rural-proofing and others. I know what happens. Everyone writes the memo in the same way they would have written it anyway, and at the bottom of it there are questions to be answered. If something has some positive impact on rural Ireland, it will be included and if it does not, it will state that, but it does not change anything.

I am not trying to criticise the Senator. I am trying to speak from my side of the table. I do not find those types of exercises very useful. We need to develop a positive vision of what we want to do. In that context, the debate on the IDA was interesting. I have long come to the conclusion that the IDA is not the answer to the problems in the west. I am not sure I would welcome a multinational company coming to many areas in the west and providing 300 or 400 jobs. In many cases, in particular the IDA-type jobs which were brought into more rural parts, the policy is "easy come, easy go". My belief is that the development of industry would be better done by organisations such as Enterprise Ireland, where jobs are created by people such as ourselves in Leader-type programmes.

As a Minister, I have found again and again that in the Gaeltacht the industries which stay through good and bad times and which have durability were all indigenous. They had a reason for being where they were and stuck it out during the bad times because it was the only place they could be and they had nowhere else to go. When awards were given last year for the top industries in the Gaeltacht, only one non-national company was involved. All of the other successful industries in the Gaeltacht, an area which is much more industrialised than the equivalent rural areas outside the Gaeltacht, were indigenous and used natural resources or the intellectual resources of the owner. The owner was there because he or she was from the area or wanted to be there and would not go anywhere else.

We should have another debate in the House on a proper development and enterprise strategy for the west. I am probably over my time.