Mark Wall (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I join with my colleague, Senator Craughwell, in the call for the Minister for Defence to come before us once again and to allow both PDFORRA and the Representative Association of Commissioned Officers, RACO, to affiliate with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU. It is a call a number of us have made in this House. I raised it with the Minister recently when he was in here. As the Leader will know, he is due to come back and speak to us on the Commission on the Defence Forces and hopefully that can happen very quickly.

It was very heartening to see 85% of RACO members recently vote to allow the affiliation of that particular organisation with ICTU and, obviously, to join with PDFORRA. I would ask the Minister to consider that. With pay talks in the air at the moment, it is very important that both PDFORRA and RACO take their rightful place at ICTU and at the negotiation table.

I also want to raise with the Leader the recently announced regional aid maps. The press release from the Department states:

Regional Aid is a form of state aid funded by the Irish exchequer that can be given to enterprises to encourage investment and job creation in economically relatively disadvantaged areas. The Regional Aid Map identifies the areas within Ireland where Regional Aid is allowed under EU rules, as set out in the Commission’s Regional Aid Guidelines.

[ ... ]

On foot of these guidelines, in recognition of the strength and improvement in Ireland’s economy since 2014, the European Commission reduced the overall size of the population area of Ireland that could be covered by ... [the] Regional Aid [maps]. This was part of a European wide review. Originally the maximum allowable coverage for Ireland was proposed [according to the statement] to be 25.64%, but following intensive negotiations with the Commission, it ... [was raised to] 35.9%.

Importantly, the reason I am raising this today is that the press release states: "While there is a reduction in overall coverage, some or all of each county included in the previous map is included in the new map approved today by the Commission."

The Athy municipal district, MD, which is the area in which I live, had been part of the map from 2014 to 2022.However, in the recently-announced map, the Athy municipal district has been removed and no other part of County Kildare has been included. The Athy MD was included for very specific reasons in the previous map and, unfortunately, to the greatest extent, many of those reasons have not changed in recent years. Enterprise has not been located in the Athy municipal district to provide much-needed employment, so the municipal district's removal is worrying, to say the least. We have seen progress on the new road in Athy and a number of other tourism-related projects, making Athy an attractive place to move to and raise a family. What we need now is enterprise to provide employment. The Athy municipal district, including the towns of Athy and Castledermot and the wonderful villages of Nurney, Ballitore, Calverstown, Narraghmore and Kilberry, needs an additional stimulus to attract enterprise and employment, and its removal from the regional aid maps needs to be explained by the Minister, who might come before the House. I have written to him today seeking an explanation as to why the Athy municipal district has been removed from the regional aid maps.