The natural gas pipeline to the west could become an election issue following confirmation that 10 towns on the route will be connected to the natural gas grid in 2003.
Fine Gael has said the number of towns in the constituencies of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, and the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, to be served in the initial link-up indicated the pipeline "has political fingerprints all over it".
The midland towns of Mullingar, Enfield and Athlone are due to be connected by mid-2003, along with Ballinasloe, Co Galway, Tullamore and Clara, Co Offaly, Clarecastle and Ennis in Co Clare.
The village of Oranmore, Co Galway, and Galway city should be connected by the end of that year, Bord Gáis Éireann said yesterday when it signed a €200 million construction contract for the pipeline.
The selection of the towns for low-pressure distribution spur lines represents the first phase of the network extension programme to the midlands and west, Mr Gerry Walsh, chief executive of Bord Gáis said yesterday in Galway. Priority was given to towns which are in close proximity to the transmission pipeline, or which present "significant demand centres" for natural gas, he said.
However, several towns in the west not named in yesterday's announcement have expressed dismay at their apparent exclusion. The deputy mayor of Loughrea, Co Galway, Cllr Pat Hynes, said he would "not take this lying down" and would campaign with other towns, including Portumna and Athenry, to ensure that they were included. The decision had put Loughrea at a "considerable disadvantage", and he would be raising it at local authority level.
Bord Gáis has stressed that the list is "not exhaustive". The company would continue to review the possibility of linking other communities to the grid and this would become more cost effective once the initial pipeline was laid, a spokesman said. Other connections to towns in the north-west "are also being evaluated".
Four groups of contractors are laying the pipeline involving more than 600 construction jobs, the company has said. The project is part of Bord Gáis's €1.4 billion infrastructure development programme, which also includes a second sub-sea interconnector pipeline from Scotland to Ireland, a pipeline from Mayo to Galway as part of the Corrib field project, a pipeline from Dublin to Belfast and from Belfast to Derry, and a spurline from the second interconnector to the Isle of Man.
There was disappointment among business interests in the north-west who pointed out that no town in the region had yet to be proposed for a link up as part of the Corrib field project.
Mr Mark McSharry of the United Chambers of Commerce in the region said the region "suffered from the absence of any heavyweight political influence" in terms of a Cabinet minister.
Fine Gael's spokesman on western development, Mr Gerry Reynolds, said that "development seems to be based on where you have a cabinet minister you spend money, rather than tackling the real issues".