Two Independent TDs have said the proposed abolition of the Western Development Commission reflects the "negative attitude of both Government and high-level public servants to the west of Ireland.
"The three unwise men who advised this are certainly not bearing gifts from the east for this region," the Mayo TD, Dr Jerry Cowley, told The Irish Times yesterday.
Dr Cowley was referring to the three members of the Independent Estimates Review Committee, who identified abolition of the state body as one in a series of measures which could be taken by the Minister for Finance to cut spending.
They also recommended scrapping the Irish Film Board, and rationalising regional fisheries boards, along with merging the marketing activities of Bord Bia, Enterprise Ireland and Bord Glas.
In a joint statement, Dr Cowley and Ms Marian Harkin, Independent TD for Sligo-Leitrim, said "this so-called independent committee comprising former secretary-generals of Government departments is the latest mechanism devised to justify further discrimination against the west".
The TDs quoted from the committee's guiding principle that they had made every effort to identity "lower-priority programmes" .
"It is not surprising to us, who have over the years seen the disregard for the west shown by governments and senior public servants, to find that these former top civil servants regard the main development agency of the west of Ireland as a 'lower-priority programme'," the TDs said.
"This is the public manifestation of what has constituted the private policy operated by Government since the Western Development Commission was formed and which put every obstacle possible in its way to prevent it from doing the job it was established to do.
" It was this very policy which led to the resignation of the commission's first chief executive and continues to be an insult to the independent members of the board and its staff."
They called on the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Mr Ó Cuív, to clarify his position.
Earlier this week, the Minister said that no decision on the commission's future would be taken until a review was completed in about two to three months time.
Reviews of it and Údarás na Gaeltachta were commissioned by Mr Ó Cuív shortly after taking office earlier this year.
"The final decision will be based on that review," a spokeswoman for Mr Ó Cuiív emphasised.,
She added that "other recommendations" would be taken into consideration.
In a separate development, the Border, Midland and Western Regional Assembly and the Marine Institute have said that many supports are available to the marine sector in the west under the National Development Plan.
At an information seminar in Galway, Mr Geoffrey O'Sullivan of the Marine Institute said the plan recognised the importance of research and development as a driver of economic development.
