HARKIN SLATES NEW FIANNA FAIL FAIRNESS ETHIC

The words balanced regional development  have disappeared from Fianna Fail’s vocabulary to be replaced with a new pledge of ‘fairness’ in the implementation of future Government investment in the regions.

This was stated by Marian Harkin TD, MEP when she described the Government’s under-spend of €2.4 billion in the BMW region to the end of June as a clear evidence of failure to implement the core commitment in the National Development Plan due to end in December next.

“When taken with the €2.28 over-spend in the statistically better off Southern & Eastern region it is obvious why Fianna Fail is keen to introduce the new lip service verbalisation of fairness”, she said.

Fianna Fail’s new focus group devised ‘fairness’ mirage indicated that the National Plan for the next seven years was likely to continue the widening of the gap between the country’s two economic regions, Marian Harkin said.

“There is a cynicism at the heart of this Fianna Fail led Government which derives from the fact that they do not appear to suffer electorally from consistent failure to deliver ‘fairness’ throughout the regions”, she said.  Neither did they have to fear that the social partners were prepared to make balanced regional development a break-point issue, she said.

“Irish Governments have taken EU money to be used to deliver convergence between regions but it has shamefully used it for the opposite purpose as revealed in the €4.8 billion gap in delivery between the country’s two economic regions”, Marian Harkin TD, MEP said.