\nLack of regional balance highlighted as need for full reopening of the Western Rail Corridor is stressed\n<\/p>\n
Addressing a meeting of the Western Inter-County Railway Committee in Sligo, attended by Councillors from Clare, Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo and Donegal, Mr Daly said that in terms of rail infrastructure, there has never been a better reason to invest in the Northern and Western Region.<\/p>\n
He told members that \u201cthe region\u2019s population is growing \u2013 up to 962,200 as of 2025 \u2013 our region\u2019s labour market remains relatively strong \u2013 with employment growing to 482,300 in Q3-2025 \u2013 while the region\u2019s economy continues to grow, with total economic output rising to just over \u20ac40 billion as per the latest CSO figures.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, while the region is growing, we aren\u2019t growing anywhere near as fast in comparison to the Eastern and Midland Region of Ireland.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs such, regional inequalities in Ireland continue to rise, with our region\u2019s share of Ireland\u2019s population progressively falling over time to 17.6% as of Census 2022 and as per the latest CSO population estimates up to 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA central component to supporting a region\u2019s competitiveness is the provision of high-quality transport infrastructure, particularly rail in the context of the transition to a low carbon society.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt a basic level, rail \u2013 amongst other things \u2013 supports economic development by allowing for the efficient movement of goods, people and services.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on the latest population forecasts out to 2040, regional imbalances in Ireland are likely to worsen unless there is a significant intervention by central government, with ESRI forecasts suggesting it could fall to 17% by 2040.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe continuation of historical trends suggests our region\u2019s share could even fall further than this forecast.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the revised National Planning Framework seeks to address this issue by targeting a 50:50 split in population growth between the Eastern and Midland Region and the other NUTS 2 Regions of Ireland, such a target won\u2019t be possible under the current investment allocations for projects of scales that are in the pipeline for delivery, with these projects predominantly focused on the Greater Dublin Area.”<\/p>\n
\u201cCentral to addressing this trend of rising regional inequalities is enhancing the economic competitiveness of the Northern and Western Region of Ireland, making it more viable for the region to attract people, jobs and investments and provide a credible counterbalance to the Greater Dublin Area.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is clear from the European Commission\u2019s \u201cRegional Competitiveness Index\u201d that if we want to improve our competitiveness, our region will go a long way to achieving this by improving our rail infrastructure, with this region\u2019s Achilles heel being the lack of accessibility to rail infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking at the sub-indexes, our rail infrastructure is ranked in the bottom 20 NUTS 2 Regions in the EU, yet the region performs exceptionally in areas such as higher education (16th out of 234 regions), households with broadband access (46th) and people involved in science and technology (52nd).<\/p>\n
\u201cRegarding airport infrastructure, we perform relatively strong at 135th which is exceptional for a rural region and shows our overall \u201cinfrastructure ranking\u201d of 218th out of 234 regions will be improved notably by focusing on growing our rail network.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs such, the NWRA supports projects such as the full delivery of the Western Railway Corridor as documented in our recent submission on the revised National Development Plan and as per the objectives of the Regional Spatial and Economic Strategy of the Northern and Western Region,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n
Councillor Michael Frain, Chair of the Northern and Western Regional Assembly, also addressed the meeting and reiterated the strong support of the Assembly for the full delivery of the Galway-Sligo rail link.<\/p>\n
\u201cA motion supporting the completion of the Western Rail Corridor to Sligo and supporting Iarnr\u00f3d \u00c9ireann\u2019s commitment to preserving the line for rail development only was passed unanimously at the recent meeting of the Assembly and sent to both the Taoiseach and T\u00e1naiste,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lack of regional balance highlighted as need for full reopening of the Western Rail Corridor is stressed Addressing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,2259],"class_list":{"0":"post-285203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-paul-deering"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}