David Cullinane (Sinn Fein)

I regret the fact that the Minister of State's contribution was defensive. What I was putting on the record were facts, and at no point did I say the Minister of State who is in the Chamber was responsible for any of what has happened in the south east. I was simply saying there was a problem and that it needs to be solved. There is also room for constructive criticism of the Government, because it is this Government - in the form of the Minister of State's colleague, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation - that published the Forfás plan. A previous Minister who sat in that chair acknowledged there was a lack of deliverable targeted responses and that the plan was long on high aspirations and short on specifics.

The Minister of State asked about solutions. The solutions are obvious and staring us in the face when we look at the figures I gave. The solution is balanced regional development. The plan, for example, talks about the region playing to its strengths in life sciences, internationally-traded services and other areas on which we can concentrate. The enterprise agencies should give us the support we need to achieve this. We have seen that from 2009 onwards, companies in Waterford and the south east have received less grant aid at a time when more money is being spent, and that the area has the highest unemployment levels in the country. We must point out these failures. These may not be the fault of the Minister of State sitting in the chair, but they represent a failure of his Government, previous Governments and the State agencies to bring about balanced regional development. Whatever solutions, positive as they are, are established by this Government, I will fully support them, because we all want to see jobs for people in this country, but where there are shortcomings, I am sure the Minister of State will agree that we have a responsibility to point them out.