DEAR SIR: In recent weeks, I’ve attended a number of official functions dealing with enterprise promotion and Leader development in Co Leitrim. I have to admire the organisers for their fortitude and energy, but I pity them for being forced to put a brave face on what is a nasty Government cost-cutting situation.

In the past five years, the Co Leitrim annual budget has fallen from €47m to €33m. In recent times, the enterprise funding has been cut by 30% and Leader funding has been cut by 40%.

I believe this trend is mirrored in neighbouring counties.

On Thursday 1 December, I attended an enterprise function promoting a new way of integrating and combining the efforts of small businesses, expertise from learning institutions and four county councils in the upper Shannon-Erne catchment.

There is some merit in what is being proposed and I wish them well, but this is no substitute for proper regional development.

Proper regional development will have to be part of an overall national development strategy, combined with ample funding. Without ample funding, regional development is going nowhere.

Let us not be fooled into thinking that our development needs are being catered for. What I read from Thursday’s function is that things are being done on the cheap.

A certain impression of progress is being created, but like the fellow on the downward escalator, we are running hard just to keep in the one place.

As a former Tánaiste, the late Brian Lenihan, would say of the Government “Let them come clean with the public”.