Why was the west left out in the cold? – Chambers

QUESTIONS NEED ANSWERS  Deputy Lisa Chambers.

Edwin McGreal

A Mayo TD is demanding to know what criteria was used to take the west and north west of Ireland out of a massive EU infrastructural funding kitty.
Fianna FΡil TD Lisa Chambers has tabled a series of parliamentary questions on the Ten-T funding controversy.
It emerged in recent weeks that in 2011 the then Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar removed the Western Arc, running right along the west of Ireland, from the Trans European Network-Transport Core funding network.
That decision denied projects in the west a chance to draw funding from the Core fund, which has a kitty of approximately €750 billion for projects across the European Union.
The Taoiseach has since defended the decision, saying that Ireland could not afford to leave the Western Arc in the Core network due to Ireland’s financial circumstances at the time.
However, speaking in the DΡil last Wednesday, Deputy Chambers refuted this argument in a debate with current Minister for Transport Shane Ross.
“The minister did not need to have the money in the bank to make the application,” she said.
She argued why was money the reason for taking the Western Arc off the Core network when a Navan to Dunboyne rail link was added, as was Shannon Foynes.
“It is clear, therefore, that there was money for some projects but not for all,” she said.
In her parliamentary questions, Deputy Chambers refers to the issue of finance.
She asks: “What criteria did the then Minister for Transport use in 2011 when deciding what projects remained on the Core and Comprehensive maps for Ten-T finding? I wasn’t given an answer to this question in my last PQ (parliamentary question). To be absolutely clear I want to know how the then Minister for Transport in 2011 decided that the Western Rail Corridor would be removed from the application and map for Ten-T funding and that the rail line from Dunboyne to Navan would be added to the application?”
Deputy Chambers also asks about the commitment in the Programme for Government to apply to the EU to reinstate the Western Arc onto the Core network, asking has the Government followed through on this commitment.
Speaking to The Mayo News Roscommon-Galway Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice, who also questioned Minister Ross in the DΡil last Wednesday, said the decision to remove the Western Arc as ‘madness’.
“Unless you put in the infrastructure, you are wasting your time. This is a way of getting extra money from Europe too. Who wouldn’t do that when it is being offered to them? Europe are only too happy to give it and we turn it down? It’s madness,” he said.