Cowen unveils €2.65bn regional investment plan

A €2.65 billion spending programme to improve regional competitiveness was presented by Tánaiste Brian Cowen in Tullamore, Co Offaly, yesterday.

The fund, which includes €750 million in EU structural funds, is to be spent largely on developing the "knowledge economy" from research and development programmes in the institutes of technology, to Fás programmes and financial support for innovation.

Some €458 million of the money will go to the Border, midlands and western (BMW) region, where it will also be used on upgrading some physical infrastructure such as strategic, non-national roads and regional link roads. The remaining €292 million is targeted at a similar but smaller need in the southern and eastern region.

Both regions plan to support the development of broadband communications in areas where it is not commercially viable.

It is planned that funding will be targeted at towns identified in the State's National Spatial Strategy. The EU will provide an additional €152 million in funding for cross-Border, inter-regional and international measures, including the EU Peace III programme, centred on the Border counties. Details of these spending plans are yet to be announced but they will bring the EU structural funds to €901 million between now and 2013.

While Ireland has in the past received much more money from the EU, Mr Cowen said this allocation was a recognition that Ireland had moved from "the poorest of the rich" to a country with a high economic output and one which could sustain a National Development Plan with a value of €184 billion up to 2013.

Addressing the director general of the EU regional affairs directorate, Jorgen Gren, as well as members of the regional assemblies, Mr Cowen said the State's National Development Plan was "the largest and most ambitious investment programme ever proposed for Ireland".

Mr Cowen said the EU structural funds would be complementary to State investment, but were still very important, focusing on employment and innovation.

Gerry Finn, director of the BMW Regional Assembly, said he was pleased with the programme. Commenting on reports that some money in the last National Development Plan remained unspent in the BMW region, Mr Finn said he thought this referred to "private-sector funding which never came through".

The cathaoirleach of the BMW assembly, Cllr James Deegan, said the last National Development Plan had seen the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the BMW region grow from 75 per cent of the EU average to 103 per cent. Because of this success the region no longer qualified for Objective One status and is now a "phasing-in" region under Objective Two, which concentrates on regional competitiveness and employment.

In 2008 investment would be made in applied research, incubation facilities in the institutes of technology, support for micro-enterprises provided by county enterprise boards, rural water protection schemes, renewable energy and urban renewal.

Mr Gren congratulated Ireland on its use of structural funding, saying it was an encouragement to countries in eastern Europe, particularly Poland.