Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Amendment No. 67 mentions including "reflecting regional concerns". I would see our technological universities represent the regions they come from by their very nature. The new technological universities we are seeing, for example, in Athlone, Galway and Sligo are university campuses that are now in small regional towns. The agricultural campus is in Mountbellew. There is now a university campus in Sligo, Castlebar, Galway city and Letterkenny. They are in places that never before had a university. They are now competing with our university centres. We can talk about the soil and blood of the area but those technological universities have embedded within them the important priorities, particularly in areas in the west. It is around rural development and the lack of investment in services and how we fight for and ensure that we have the evidence base to go forward.

Senator Clonan spoke about shiny tech. The medtech sector in Galway alone probably provides employment for the majority of people living in a 40 mile radius.