Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail)

I would also welcome an opportunity to debate the jobs initiative and, from my perspective, its failure. An ESRI conference yesterday learned how 80% of the jobs created in recent times have been located in Dublin, Galway and Cork even though job losses in those locations would only have been 60% of those elsewhere. It is important to focus on the original visions of the national spatial strategy and why it has clearly failed. Why has Government policy to date not adequately tackled those areas that have suffered the highest redundancies and unemployment per capita, when one considers Donegal and the counties in the north west? As Senator Leyden has said, it is consistent with the plan to phase out services throughout the area north of a line from Dublin to Galway.

It is very insulting to celebrate the provision of an air ambulance when people are entitled to a health service comparable to that of the rest of the country. If the people of Roscommon now find themselves in need of an emergency department and cannot get to Galway quickly enough, provided the weather is favourable and the air ambulance works, they might survive, but if not they are second class citizens compared with the people based on the east coast or close to a so-called centre of excellence.

I would welcome the opportunity to debate some of these issues, in particular the employment issue other Senators have raised. It is unacceptable that the lion's share of activity as measured by grants and other resources provided through IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland is in certain areas. The focus of Government should be at least a basic acknowledgement that those people who happen to live outside the pale or outside the catchment area of our larger cities are just as entitled to a policy that at least aspires to provide the same level of employment and resources to them.