Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Éamon Ó Cuív has been criticised by several politicians for his comments on the Shannon-Heathrow row.
Labour Party president and Galway West TD Michael D Higgins has accused him of "bogus regionalism", while Independent MEP Marian Harkin said yesterday that Mr Ó Cuív's comments reflected "classic Fianna Fáil double-speak".
Mr Higgins and Ms Harkin were responding to a speech made yesterday by the Minister at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology on the issue.
Mr Ó Cuív said that "negative campaigning" over the loss of the Shannon-Heathrow air link was selling the midwest region "short". He urged business leaders to stop "wasting time" on "what might have been" and to plan for the future.
Mr Higgins said that Mr Ó Cuív's "attack on those campaigning for regional equality in air transport" was "a pathetic attempt to rationalise his vote against the campaign".
He said the Minister had first supported the campaign and then changed his position. "Far from this campaign damaging the region, it has made the case for real regional planning," Mr Higgins said.
"Regional policy does not happen by accident," Mr Higgins said. "An unrestrained reliance on crude market thinking that eschews any social responsibility is disastrous."
The Aer Lingus Shannon-Heathrow row had to be "placed alongside other Government failures in terms of the regions", Mr Higgins said, such as the failure to spend EU cohesion funds that had been allocated to the Border, Midland and Western (BMW) region.
Ms Marian Harkin said that Mr Ó Cuív's comments indicated that "the Willie O'Dea school of double-think had recruited a new pupil to its ranks". People were being asked to be happy with "the big picture" and not to be concerned about the fact that their region continued to lag behind," she said.
The Government had "refused to equitably use" billions of euro in EU cohesion funds and it was "mind-boggling" then for a Minister "to speak about the need for the west to adapt its economy for global competitiveness".
An underspend of €2.5 billion in basic infrastructure in the BMW region compared "very unfavourably with an overspend of over €2 billion in the south and east region", Ms Harkin said.
