National Development Plan Dail Éireann — 2026-04-16 ============================================================ Tony McCormack (FF), Offaly One of the most important tests of NSO 5 is whether it helps regional towns to retain populations and attract sustainable employment. For areas in the midlands, keeping our communities vibrant depends on meaningful local jobs, strong services and infrastructure that supports family life and business growth. Will the Minister outline how progress under NSO 5 is being measured in terms of employment creation, population retention and local service provision in regional towns? How will the Government ensure that counties like Offaly receive their fair share of future national development plan investment? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-16/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:49+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-16