£3 bn investment plan approved for Border, Midlands, Western area

Members of the Border, Midlands and Western (BMW) regional assembly yesterday approved an investment plan of more than £3 billion aimed at revitalising the region and ending more than a century of rural decline. The operation is part of an overall investment of more than £13 billion over the next 6 1/2 years.

At their meeting in Roscommon town, the assembly members approved the spending of the £3 billion, the cost of the BMW Operational Programme in the Government's National Plan 2000 - 2006.

About £1,554 million is to go on improving non-national roads in the region. Local enterprise and development is the next biggest beneficiary at £338 million. Some £253 million is to be spent on agriculture and rural development with another £221 million being spent on measures to improve social inclusion.

In addition to the operational programme, some nine Government departments and additional State agencies are also to provide funding for the region as part of the national development plan.

However, members expressed concern that the gas pipeline, which is expected to run from the west coast to Dublin, may serve only the major urban centres of Galway and Athlone.

They demanded that representatives of Bord Gais and the Department of Energy attend their next meeting to explain the proposals for the scheme, which Mr Andrew Boylan TD (Cavan) described as being "as important to the BMW region as rural electrification".

According to Mr Gerry Finn, director of the BMW authority, the purpose of the spending plan was to "allocate the resources to where they are most needed". In terms of tourism, for example, he said: "Galway is able to look after itself, but other areas need encouragement and aid."

The tourism allocation, which amounts to £59 million, would be used to develop four to five strategically-located major attractions, and clusters of attractions, in less well developed areas. The successful Strokestown Famine Museum and House, he said, could be the anchor for other attractions around Strokestown.

The tourism sub-programme is part of the £259 million local enterprise development programme. It includes £54 million for "micro enterprises" (small business start-ups); £20 million for regional innovation systems, which were described as focusing on the regional technical colleges and others involved in innovation in the area; and £83 million for the development of fishery harbours/aqua-culture, Gaeltacht and the islands.

In aqua-culture development, priority areas for investment will be the expansion of existing centres of production, new aqua-culture species, technology development, quality and environmental sustainability. Improved access measures for the Gaeltacht and the island communities would also be funded under this heading.

In providing £8 million for the development of the regional airports, Mr Finn said they were not ruling out the possibility of developing a completely new anchor airport in the region.

One of the most contentious investments under the plan is the provision for forestry, which the chairman of the assembly, Mr Tony Ferguson (Co Cavan), said "does so much damage to the roads that it would pay the councils to buy up the forests and let the trees continue growing".

In the budget for social inclusion measures, the spending of £69 million on childcare was designed to attract "women to return to the labour market by encouraging childcare measures", according to Mr Finn. Equality measures, costed at £6 million, were also targeted at women, the money being earmarked for "upskilling". Some £48 million was allocated for communities to identify and meet their own development needs.