Negative campaigning over the loss of the Shannon-Heathrow air link is selling the mid-west region short, according to Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Éamon Ó Cuív.
In a speech due to be delivered in Galway today, Mr Ó Cuív is expected to urge business leaders to stop "wasting time" on "what might have been" and to plan for the future.
His message comes just four days after the Government was within one vote of a Dáil defeat on the Shannon issue.
Mr Ó Cuív says that like all of his colleagues in Government, he was disappointed at the "unilateral decision by Aer Lingus" to move the London-Heathrow slots from Shannon to Belfast.
However, it is time to move on, he is due to say in his speech on adapting regional economies for global competitiveness, the theme of a conference at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology today. "As a Dublin person who has spent over 30 years in the west of Ireland and whose motivation going there was to get involved in economic development in a totally under-developed area, I have come to the belief that . . . you must believe in the future of your region," Mr Ó Cuív says.
This belief must be "rooted in the sure knowledge that what ultimately determines the future is the spirit of the people and their determination, not the geographic location or population" .
"While you must recognise the challenges and deficiencies in your region, never sell your region short," he says. "By always highlighting the difficulties and never the advantages, a great disservice is done . . . It is hard to expect people to invest money in a region that is seen by its citizens to be a loser," he says.
European Union membership has brought "great benefits", but has limited the type of protectionism and State support that was possible in the past to support disadvantaged regions, Mr Ó Cuív says. "It is a major challenge for us on the west coast to realise now that our future depends on competing successfully in the open market," he says.
Acknowledging that there has been much criticism of infrastructural deficiencies on the west coast, Mr Ó Cuív says that while State agencies can "level the playing field through investment", regional economic development requires "regional innovation, effort and problem-solving - looking at how to make the most of our own region's opportunities, while keeping an eye on the bigger, national picture".
"It used always be said of our history that the reason that our country was so easily conquered in the past was that each petty kingdom and area was divided against the next," Mr Ó Cuív says in his speech. "It is only by all of us working for the common good and sharing a vision for the whole country in a positive manner, rather than each region being divided against each other in a bitter rivalry, that we will progress," he says.