Taoiseach Leo Varadkar spoke to Euronews' Angela Barnes at the World Economic Forum in Davos in Switzerland about economic inequality in Ireland and how he plans to fix it.
ADVERTISEMENTWidespread high-speed broadband, public transport and universities are the key to addressing the "very significant regional disparities" in the Irish economy, the country's Taoiseach has said.
Speaking to Euronews Business at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Thursday, Leo Varadkar said that while Ireland has become a more equal country, more must be done to share the wealth creation that dominates major cities in Ireland, as in much of the world.
"So the kind of things we're doing is investing in infrastructure in particular," Varadkar said. "We're going to be one of the first countries in the world to connect every farm, business and home to high-speed broadband."
"Investment in transport infrastructure is really important too and we're establishing technological universities in every region," the prime minister added. "And that's very significant too, because it means that people can access higher education near where they live, and it means that new universities can spin off new businesses and help to bring high-quality jobs into every region."
In the interview, Varadkar said his government is investing four times as much every year in public infrastructure than when he was appointed to government back in 2011, when further pressed on the lack of access for counties, including Donegal.
"We're setting aside some of our budget surplus for a future infrastructure fund, because what we've found in the past in Ireland is that investments in infrastructure went up and down with the economic cycle, and we weren't able to afford it when we actually needed it the most, which is when the economy was in trouble," he said, noting that country's new sovereign wealth fund should help provide more consistent investment across the country.
Varadkar also touched on the development of AI with Euronews' Méabh Mc Mahon - one of the key themes in Davos this year - and warned that the EU needs to act quickly on AI regulation to stop it from falling out of date too quickly.
"We're the leaders often when it comes to regulation around data and digital and under our AI Act, whatever we do, it's going to have to be updated pretty regularly because this new technology is expanding and developing at such a rapid pace," he said.
Referring to other policy at the EU level, Varadkar turned to the topic of Ukraine and said he believes the European Council will vote to approve a pending €50 billion fund for Kyiv in February.
A fight for Ukraine is a "fight for wider European values," he told Euronews.
