Niall Blaney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. As a Donegal man, it would be remiss of me to stand here without mentioning the approval of the mica scheme by the Government. It is welcome and we will speak more about that another time. I am somebody who has taken a keen interest in the national development plans. The concept of the national development plan has come to the fore since the early 2000s. I was always taken with the fact that Northern Ireland was always somewhat blanked out in our national development plans. Similarly, in proposals in Northern Ireland, there was no connectivity in the thinking, mention of interdepartmental activity, or recognition of cross-Border infrastructural or economic needs. I welcome the Government's approach, both in this national development plan and generally. It has been driven by the shared island initiative, in particular. The thinking has changed somewhat.In my early days as a councillor, I used to occasionally travel to Dublin with a deputation to meet the then Taoiseach to discuss the N2-A5 road project. It used to baffle me that we could not get the same recognition for the north west as other parts of the country enjoyed. Motorways were built to Galway, Limerick, Cork and even to Waterford on routes that carried far less traffic than the N2-A5. However, progress has been made and I compliment the Ministers, North and South, the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and the Minister for Infrastructure, Nichola Mallon, on their collaboration to move the project forward. We hope to see progress on the N2-A5 in the not-too-distant future.

Similarly, with regard to the rail line and rail review which numerous speakers raised, I was delighted to learn from speaking to the Minister and the Minister in the North that collaboration is now taking place and terms of reference have been set for the rail review. The shared island unit has brought the whole concept of speed rail to the table. Initially, the M1 corridor, to which Senator McGahon referred, was very much on the table but, thankfully, the scope of the review has broadened to include that area of Northern Ireland west of the Bann that was neglected for decades during the Troubles. This has been recognised by the inclusion of the Derry to Belfast line in the review, which is very welcome news. I hope this will bring back the rail connectivity we once enjoyed in Donegal. I never travelled by train to Dublin but some of those who went before me spoke about doing so.

This evening, at a meeting with a number of colleagues from the Irish Central Border Area Network, ICBAN, there was discussion about greenways. There is a strong emphasis in the national development plan on the development of greenways, and rightly so because we have a great tourism trade and the Wild Atlantic Way has really taken off. There are major opportunities for tourism in other areas to take off. These include many regions along the Border. I ask the Minister of State to take back to the Government my view that the local authorities need to take a joined-up approach. There is a bit of a fight taking place to secure funding for different greenways. A master plan is needed for connecting up the various greenways. That would be the smart thing to do. The Government needs to address this issue because there is no point in having nice greenways when there is no connectivity. There has to be national approach to this. I would like to see that approach taken by the Government.