Ireland’s Taoiseach presses for a solution to Ireland’s economic inequality

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The Taoiseach said high-speed broadband, public transport and universities were key to addressing the “very significant regional disparities” in Ireland’s economy.

Leo Varadkar told Euronews Business in an interview on Thursday at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos that Ireland has become a more equal country, but like many cities, Ireland’s major cities He said more needs to be done to share the wealth creation that dominates the world. world.

“So what we’re doing is investing, particularly in infrastructure,” Mr Varadkar said. “We will be one of the first countries in the world to connect every farm, business and home to high-speed broadband.”

The Prime Minister added: “Investing in transport infrastructure is also very important and we are establishing technical universities in every region.” “This is also incredibly important because it means people can access higher education close to where they live, and new universities can spin off new businesses and bring quality jobs to every region. Because it means what you can bring.”

In an interview, Mr Varadkar said the government was investing four times more in public infrastructure each year than when he was appointed in 2011, when the lack of access in counties including Donegal was even more acute. Ta.

“We are setting aside some of our surplus budget for a future infrastructure fund, because past experience in Ireland shows that investment in infrastructure goes up and down with the economic cycle and there is not enough room to finance it. The country’s new sovereign wealth fund will help provide more consistent investments across the country, he said. I pointed out that it was supposed to be.

Mr Varadkar also touched on AI developments (one of the main themes of this year’s Davos) with Maeve McMahon of Euronews, and said the EU needs to act quickly to prevent AI regulations from quickly becoming obsolete. I was warned that there would be.

“We are often leaders when it comes to data and digital regulation, and based on the AI ​​Act, whatever we do, this new technology is expanding and developing at a very fast pace, so “It needs to be updated fairly regularly,” he said.

Referring to other policies at EU level, Varadkar turned to Ukraine and said he believed the European Council would vote to approve the pending 50 billion euro fund for Kiev in February.

The fight over Ukraine is “a fight for broader European values.” he told euronews.