Fianna Fáil has described the latest government development plan as "underwhelming" and said rural communities in Offaly will suffer.

Barry Cowen TD said the 'Ireland 2040' plan fails to incentivise development in small towns, villages and rural communities.

He said: "The Government should have used this new plan as a way for incentivising development in small towns, villages and rural communities.

"Encouraging people to live in these communities will relieve the pressure on our cities and will also inject a new lease of life into our towns and villages. We need a plan to reinvigorate rural communities in Offaly, but unfortunately the proposals put forward by Minister Coveney fall well short of this.

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"We need to see a rebalancing of the focus and budgets of the IDA and Enterprise Ireland with the view to giving greater priority to the Midlands. Marginalised and isolated communities must be at the heart of the Governments development plan. Fine Gael has been fixated on focusing investment in our cities over the last six years. This has been detrimental to small towns, villages and rural communities.

"I believe the plan must put in place a new mechanism to group a number of towns together with the aim of developing a common development strategy. For example, Athlone, Mullingar and Tullamore should have a joint development plan to promote growth.

"This plan should place a special emphasis on developing infrastructure such as improved broadband and transport services."

(CD/JP)