I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill this evening. It is clear that it is an essential part of what we need to put in place for spending for the coming year and the function has to be put through here. We understand that. I take the opportunity to speak about some issues in in my constituency and in the north west in general, particularly capital projects. Capital projects are certainly something we need to see greater investment in because the parts of the country that have been left behind the longest and have the least development are the places that have the most potential. If we could get the investment, we could certainly turn this around. The Government seems to have been blind to the north west for decades. It seems to ignore the potential of Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal and focuses instead on other areas for investment. We want to see projects that are not just spoken about but are actually invested in so that the money is put up-front and driven home. These projects include the N4 bypass in Carrick-on-Shannon in my own area, which is absolutely essential and needs to be done with haste. Anyone who travels from Sligo to Dublin most weekday evenings but certainly on a Friday evening knows that there could be a queue back almost as far as the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan's home town of Boyle. People are sometimes waiting for hours. This infrastructure badly needs to be put in place. The upgrade of the N17 is something we need to see delivered with haste as more and more people continue to lose their lives and the tragic accidents on that road continue to mount up every year. As we come to the end of another year, we all recognise the huge tragedy on our roads. Many of these road tragedies are a consequence of what were often called accident black spots but in actual fact are infrastructure deficits. These very dangerous multi-collision points on our roads need to be dealt with hastily. We need to see an upgrade of the Sligo-Dublin rail line. If I want to leave Dublin to go home on the train this evening, the last train leaves at 7.30 p.m. The last train to any region from the capital city should not be leaving at 7.30 in the evening. It should be leaving an awful lot later. We need better infrastructure and more frequency of services. We also need to see the introduction of a rail line in the western region. I welcome Irish Rail's recent decision that it is not interested in seeing a greenway being developed on the stretch of rail line that goes from Sligo to Galway, but wants to see a railway put on it. That is the western rail corridor, which has probably been talked about for generations at this stage. We need to see that put in place with haste and invested in because it can benefit the north west with significant advantages for people travelling through that region. There are many other infrastructural deficits that we see, with housing being the major one that captures everyone in every part of the country because it is the father and mother of many of our problems, for example in the health service and the education system. People cannot get housing. They cannot get places to live in. The reason developments cannot take place in many of the regions, including the north west, is that we do not have the water or wastewater infrastructure in place. In Carrick-on-Shannon, the development of water infrastructure is really serious and needs to be dealt with critically because it is at 110% capacity at the moment. That water treatment plant serves the whole of south Leitrim. If somebody comes in with planning permission in Mohill or Drumshanbo, they cannot get a letter from Uisce Éireann saying they will get a water connection because the water is not being delivered. All of these issues are having an impact. We also see the situation with the electricity grid being upgraded and the recent announcement about that. All of these things are welcome but we keep hearing more and more announcements, and those of us who live in the north west - certainly, in counties Leitrim or Sligo - see very little delivery. That is what needs to change. While we will support what is coming before us this evening in the context of this Bill, we need to see the investment on the ground. We need to see people out doing the work and we need to see delivery, and that needs to happen with haste.

Sentiment score: 0.02