A chara, - The ongoing debate regarding LUAS makes interesting reading from the periphery of the Donegal Highlands.
LUAS will attempt to remedy the decades of poor planning, which allowed Dublin to become the traffic-snarled capital of Europe, and pour £400mplus into what has become an overpopulated city, ripping at its seams, with aspiring home-owners prepared to mortgage their shirts for a shoe-box to live in. (I will bet my bottom EURO that LUAS will cost at least double the £400m sum currently being bandied about).
Decadent State planning has allowed over 51 per cent of the total population of the Republic to live in the Province of Leinster and 35 per cent in the Greater Dublin area, while rural communities struggle to retain static population figures.
Rural TDs are strangely silent on this latest initiative. They should be clamouring for a similar investment in the transport network of rural Ireland - county councils in the Northwest have scarcely the budget to fill the potholes of the God-forsaken roads we are forced to travel daily.
Could we have some creative incentives from Government to attract people, struggling with daily traffic jams in Dublin, to move to the beautiful highland and ocean environment of the west coast? Could we have £400m plus to improve our rural roads and transportation infrastructure?
And finally could we have our rural TDs unite in a call for equal expenditure of tax-payers money west of the Shannon and hopefully here in Donegal? - Is mise, Liam O Cuinneagain,
Oideas Gael, Gleann Cholm Cille, Co Dhun na nGall.