Northern Ireland Assembly

I sit on the Regional Development Committee, and, with family roots in Tyrone, I have used this road through Toome for most of my adult life.

This is an important development as it is a key access route to the west of the Province. However, we are now hearing that there is no money available for this, and it may have to be put back. That was not always so, and listening to Mr McCrea we hear revisionism at its best. We had a press release on 25 January, wherein Minister Robinson announced, quite clearly - and there was no question about it then - that the Toome bypass would be built. He went to the O'Neill Arms to produce an exhibition and unveil plans. He even had a very public row with Mr J Kelly to make sure it made the headlines on the news that night. He went into enormous detail about the length of the bridge and how this would be and that would be. However, the new Minister, Mr Campbell, claims that there is no money for funding. At that stage there was no doubt at all, and this was the Department for Regional Development's press statement:

"Funding for the bypass is being provided from the 1998 Chancellor's Initiative, which announced investment for the physical infrastructure in Northern Ireland."

There was no doubt at that stage - no doubt at all - that this was to happen.

The question is "What is the game?" You could argue that Minister Campbell has been hung out to dry and has been left to carry the rap for a complete volte-face in the Department. With friends like these, who needs enemies? Mr McCrea told how he has been after this for 20 years. I wonder who was the MP for Mid Ulster for many of those 20 years. The only reason we are able to have Minister Campbell bringing this development forward is that the Ulster Unionist Party produced the agreement. Otherwise we would still be looking for funding for all this.

Is there now an opportunity for Mr Campbell to do some lateral thinking? Perhaps there is a chance to look at the Toome bypass as a public-private partnership (PPP) - to develop it as a toll road. You could argue that it is clearly defined, it is outside the village and people will have a choice of coming through the village or taking the faster route. It would save £13 million of Mr Campbell's budget. Has he thought about that? He tells us regularly that there is no money for roads - they are underfunded - and he is absolutely correct. There is a serious crisis in Roads Service. Does his vision of the future include looking at alternatives, now that he has this opportunity of a complete turnaround - no money when Mr Robinson said there was? Perhaps he will comment on that when he gets the opportunity.

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I support the motion from my Colleague Mr John Kelly, Assembly Member for Mid Ulster. I reaffirm our position that the Toome bypass should be put in place as quickly as possible. It is a long-awaited scheme, and we have heard how long people have been lobbying about it.

Unfortunately, the then MP for the area did not deliver that particular scheme, even when at the time he was propping up the Conservative Government. Even when he was maintaining his own position and theirs, and allowing them to continue to run down the services and the infrastructures, he could not extract a concession from them to make funds available for this simple bypass.

The scheme itself cannot be delayed any longer. It has been planned for a long time. People living west of the Bann have suffered decades of discrimination by the Stormont regime and the British Government. We are talking about discrimination not against Catholics, but against the people of the west - Catholics, Protestants and Dissenters. They have all lived in that area.

From early on in the Unionist regime there was an awareness that repartition might be considered at some future stage. Therefore nothing at all was developed in the west. All the infrastructures, all the industries and all the hospitals were put east of the Bann. The attitude was that the rest of the population could come to the east if it wanted to avail of those services. However, the people were not provided with the necessary infrastructure to come and get the good of those services.

If one looks at the river Bann on the map one will see that the M2 stops just beyond Antrim, the M1 at Dungannon, and the railway at Portadown. There is no infrastructure right across from east to west.

The Member's point is very interesting. Does he agree that the same east-west divide is highly apparent in the Republic of Ireland - so much so that it has repartitioned the country itself for purposes of positioning the west of the country better for EU grants?

I agree completely. I could not have put it any better myself. We have often said that the west of Ireland has been discriminated against by the Dublin regime, by Stormont and by the British Government. In the South we now see a rebalancing. They are actually talking about repopulating the west of Ireland. We need to ensure that the same happens in the North and we will get repopulation of the Six Counties, so that we will get a fair distribution of resources, infrastructure and wealth.

I want to draw the attention of the Member, and that of the Minister, to the Omagh throughpass. Just like the Toome bypass, it is deemed to be at risk and may be deferred as a result of the 15 November announcement. I find it very unusual that the Member for South Antrim - sorry, the Member for Mid Ulster - Mr McCrea, was putting the onus on all the other parties to secure funding for the Toome bypass and these other road schemes. The Minister's self-exclusion from the Executive table has cost many communities the money for these schemes.

I agree. Not only has the Minister not come to the Executive and argued for the money to be made available, but the previous Minister took advantage of the situation by making the announcement, laying down the plans and leaving it to the Executive to provide the money. He knew that he was not going to be there for the second round. He simply left Mr Campbell to clean up afterwards.

We are now in a situation where we do not have the Minister who announced it, and we do not have the funds to deliver it, because there was no plan in place to ensure that the Executive would support it. It was simply a public relations announcement by Mr Peter Robinson at that time.

The village of Toome has suffered severely. It has been destroyed by pollution, traffic congestion and noise. The quality of life has been affected. Even the plaque that Mr McClelland was looking for would be splashed all over if it were put up at the moment, given the amount of traffic that is going through the village.

We have to take all that into account if we are going to improve the situation and improve the quality of life for the villagers. One of the things that we have found down through the years is that villagers often feel that their village will be destroyed by putting a bypass around it. In this situation the village has been destroyed by the failure to put a bypass around it, and the failure to put the bridge in place. We need to address this problem. This is one of the main east/west arterial routes.

It is important that this bridge is put in place and that the infrastructure is developed. Not only is this the main east/west arterial route, but it is also the main arterial route for the DUP/LVF spokesperson from Mid Ulster, South Antrim, or wherever he is currently representing. He now travels between one constituency and the other, so it is vital that this bridge be built, for that would allow him to move between his constituencies quickly.

If we are going to develop the west - and this is one of the main issues we need to address - we have to have the necessary infrastructure. Industrialists say that they cannot get their goods out or their materials in. If TSN is to mean anything in this Assembly, and if the Executive is sincere in trying to implement it, we need to target social need by providing adequate finances and resources. I ask Members to support this. It is unfortunate that the people who caused the whole east/west problem in the past are badly represented in the Chamber. There are only three Members - [Interruption]