Galway West TD and Minister of State Mr Eamon O Cuiv (FF) has said he is bringing a report to the Government in the autumn addressing the needs of the areas of greatest population decline.
Speaking after the publication of the Western Development Commission's State of the West report yesterday, Mr O Cuiv said he had been drawing up his own report under the National Development Plan. It would target areas which had suffered population decline, a subsequent withdrawal of services and bad infrastructure.
Mr O Cuiv said that, living and working in the west, he could "write a book about the lack of infrastructure here, having to deal with it on a daily basis". The report of the Western Development Commission, he said, was "useful" and gave the Government more data.
He said improvements were taking place. "The rate of improvement is quite significant, but just not as significant as the rest of the country." There was a commitment under the Programme for Partnership and Prosperity to give priority to investment for those areas "to break the cycle of decline".
The Opposition parties were critical of the Government's lack of action in the west following the publication of the report. The leader of the Labour Party, Mr Ruairi Quinn, said the news that the Government was failing to drive the implementation of the National Development Plan for the west would come as news to nobody.
He said the commission's conclusion that the situation faced by the west warranted dramatic action was deeply worrying. He asked where was the national spatial plan promised in the National Development Plan? Labour's spatial plan, he said, would aim to ensure balanced and sustainable development across all regions.
The Fine Gael spokesman on western development, Mr Gerry Reynolds, said the report showed that despite some growth, most of the western region still lagged far behind the rest of the Republic.
The lack of investment in the road and rail networks and weak power and telecommunications infrastructure were contributing to the west's increasing lack of competitiveness with the east and the south.
The party proposed a front-loaded capital investment in road, rail and airport infrastructure, as well as full unbundling of the local loop to give cheaper and faster access to the development of e-commerce in the region. It also proposed a regional development department which would oversee balanced development.
The Council for the West said expenditure of £750 million and the "political will" to do so would bridge the gap between the aspirations of the National Development Plan and the western deficit.
A redirection of just 1.75 per cent of the planned investment under the NDP would fully fund the required infrastructure development in the region, Mr Sean Hannick, vice-chairman of the council, said yesterday.
Ms Marian Harkin, former chairwoman of the council and now an independent candidate in the next election in the Sligo-Leitrim constituency, said the commission was to be congratulated for its commitment to "telling it as it is". The response yesterday of ministers was at best unhelpful and at worst inaccurate, she said.
Referring specifically to the response on RTE radio's Morning Ireland programme from the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Fahey, she said it was incorrect to claim that the remedy lay within the National Development Plan.
"The very point being made in the report is that the scale of under-investments in infrastructure in the west over many decades is such that measures contained in the NDP will not be sufficient to achieve balanced regional development," she said.