Written Answers. - Objective One Status.
Cecilia Keaveney
Question:
131
Cecilia Keaveney
asked the
Minister for Public Enterprise
the advantages under her Department's remit that have accrued to County Donegal and the north west region arising from the Objective One designation; and if she will make a statement on the matter.
[6035/02]
Under the national development plan, €192 million was provided for the development of regional public transport initiatives, other than mainline rail. Of this amount, €15 million has been allocated to upgrade regional public transport outside the cities.
To date, Bus Éireann has allocated five new buses to the north-west region. The company has also continued its programme to provide high frequency, quality services between the north-west and Dublin, as well as the introduction of a number of local services between towns in Donegal, Sligo and Tyrone. Town services were also introduced in Sligo.
Under the rail safety programme, significant investment has been made in upgrading the railway line from Dublin to Sligo. Upgrading the rolling stock will commence with the delivery, in mid-2002, of the first of a batch of 80 new diesel rail cars.
A sum of €10.1 million in grant aid was provided under the Airports Measure of the national development plan to the four regional airports in the BMW region – Donegal, Sligo, Knock and Galway. The primary aim of the measure is to provide grant assistance to support compliance by the airports with safety and security issues and also to aid, where appropriate, certain infrastructural upgrades.
The project submission from Donegal Airport, together with those from the other regional airports, are currently being finalised and it is envis aged that, following the completion of site visits by my officials to the regional airports, we will be in a position to issue project approvals very shortly.
While not directly reflected in the designation of the BMW region as an Objective One area, my Department has supported the provision of fast, reliable air access, on a daily basis, between Dublin and the regional airports in the West and North-West, through the Public Service Obligation regime.
Two PSO routes serve the people of County Donegal and surrounding areas, namely, the daily service to Donegal Airport and the twice daily service to Derry Airport, which serves east. I established the Derry-Dublin service as a new PSO air route on 18 January 2001. I also established a new daily PSO service between Knock Airport and Dublin and I increased the frequency on the Galway-Dublin route from 21 to 28 flights per week. Sligo Airport is also served with two daily flights to Dublin under the PSO regime.
In addition, under my Department's grant scheme last year to support marketing, safety and security measures at the regional airports, I doubled, compared to the previous year, the allocations to both Donegal and Sligo Airports to approximately €254,000. A similar sum was allocated to Galway Airport, representing an increase of 60% on that airport's allocation in 2000. Knock Airport was allocated a sum of approximately €444,000 last year.
An allocation of €24.1 million has been made for communications infrastructure initiatives in the BMW region under the national development plan.
I signed a contract with Chorus in 2000 entitled, BMW Broadband Communications Corridor. This project will provide broadband access to the north-Midlands and north Connaught and will cover Buncrana, Letterkenny, Donegal, Bundoran, Ballyshannon, Sligo, Ballina, Galway, Monaghan, Cavan, Longford, Athlone, Ballinasloe, and Tullamore.
I also signed a contract with ESB Telecoms in 2000 to roll-out a national 48-fibre optic trunk route communications infrastructure using ESB's existing high voltage overhead power lines at 400kV, 100kV and 38kV. There are two main service areas which form the basis of this project, broadband managed backbone services and dark fibre lease. The areas of Cavan, Sligo, Galway and Donegal will benefit from this project.
No payments have been made on either of these projects to date.
