Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I would not say the Government has failed. The issue in recent years has been to get jobs into this country and to create new jobs. It is fair to say that much of the original growth and new jobs happened in the east and in some of the larger cities, such as Cork, Galway and Dublin. Our first aim is to try to stabilise that position and to win new jobs and then to try to address the regional imbalance. Many of the regions need extra attention. That is the reason we are responding with specific strategies for each region. The drop in unemployment across the board is about 4%. That is common in the western region. It is coming from a higher base but the percentage drop is the same.