The Government should give a firm election commitment to provide natural gas to the main towns of Connacht as "a relatively inexpensive indication that it is seriously interested in balancing regional development", the chairman of the Western Development Commission said yesterday.
Mr Michael Farrell, who is also chief executive of the Connacht Gold Co-op, was speaking at the presentation of the Connacht Gold/John Healy journalism awards in Carrick-on-Shannon.
A TG4 drama documentary, Ár Dover Féin, produced and directed by Louis Lentin, won the main award.
The national print award was won by freelance journalist Shay Fennelly, for a piece in The Irish Times on the effect of the natural gas resource on the Shetland Islands. The local print award was won by James Laffey of the Mayo News and the local radio award was won by Theresa O'Malley and Liamy MacNally of Mid-West Radio.
Mr Farrell said there was little evidence that the economic gap was capable of being closed as there were new doubts about the availability of funds under the National Development Plan.
The late John Healy would have had harsh words about what was happening today, Mr Farrell said.
The gas pipeline should go through Connacht and not around it. He could not understand why it was being taken on a "devious" route from Erris to Galway and then across the country.
Ireland's EU commissioner, Mr David Byrne, who presented the awards, said he believed Irish people did not want to prevent more countries joining the EU.
He blamed misinformation in the run-up to the Nice referendum for the No vote.