David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I express my sadness that we are to lose Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh. He has been the most hard-working, decent, committed Member of the Seanad and we will certainly miss him.

I support very much what Senator Michelle Mulherin said. This morning I listened on the wireless to the reports. In the worst case scenario we are presented with the situation where there would only be rail connections between Dublin and Limerick, Dublin and Cork and Dublin and Belfast - three railway lines for the whole of Ireland. That is dreadful. I call for a debate not just on transport services in the west but also on the planning and development ideas the Government has because it looks as if Sligo is to be left out. That means there would be no town included north of the Dublin-Galway axis. Sligo was originally nominated as a gateway town, but there has been no investment in it. It is all very well to nominate a place as a gateway town and then do nothing at all about it. Sligo may only have a population of 20,000, but it has an enormous hinterland which includes counties Roscommon, Leitrim and others. It is extremely important, if we are committed to keeping people in rural Ireland and the provinces and not having just one enormous conurbation on the east coast, that we do something. This House should have a debate to urge the Government to live up to its commitment to the west.