Plan will `end imbalances which have disfigured Ireland' - Ahern

Some £13.5 billion is to be invested in the Border, Midland and Western (BMW) region, while slightly more than £27 billion is to be invested in the Southern and Eastern (SE) region, under the National Development Plan.

Outlining what he said was the Government's "determination to end the regional imbalances which have disfigured modern Ireland", the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said the plan gives the BMW region "the best chance ever to match the economic development of the rest of the country".

The plan aims to accommodate regional development through the three national inter-regional programmes, which comprise economic and social infrastructure such as the roads; employment and human resources; and the productive sector.

There will also be two regional operational programmes targeting special measures at local development in the two regions, and a special Peace Programme of £83 million, aimed at the border counties.

Investment under the regional operational programmes will amount to £2.9 billion in the SE region, with £837 million going to measures to encourage social inclusion; £336 million for investment in the productive sector; and £1,812 million for regional infrastructure. Investment in the BMW region will amount to £2.084 billion, of which £1.525 billion will go to regional infrastructure; £221 million to measures to encourage social inclusion; and £338 million for measures for the productive sector.

The regional infrastructural programme will include investment in non-national roads, rural water schemes, waste management, urban and village renewal, and communications.

The plan sees the role of "economic gateways" as important in the drive to spread economic prosperity to the regions. The gateways, as opposed to "growth centres" will incubate growth but not retain it in the centre, spreading it instead to surrounding towns and villages. The exact location of these economic gateways is to await the publication of a Spatial Development Strategy currently being devised by the Department of the Environment.