It"s my time - in Westmeath

Willie Penrose has been championing Westmeath"s merits as a commuter town at a government think tank which started in Dublin yesterday (Monday).Mr Penrose joined representatives from across Leinster who had gathered to discuss the benefits and draw backs of being 'on the road to Dublin'.The talks included input from the IDA, Enterprise Ireland and various County Enterprise Boards and Chambers of Commerce.'What we are doing at the minute is gathering information from all the towns involved and trying to find out common problems and good points that we can work worth,' said Mr Penrose yesterday (Monday) evening.'This fact finding will go from a Joint Oireachtas Committee to a full committee hearing and then onto the relevant Minister who in this case happens to be the Tanaíste. What I will be doing is making sure that any issues from Westmeath will be getting a fair hearing,' said Mr Penrose,The committee findings will culminate in a visit to Mullingar by the Tanaíste on September 3 this year as part of a series of province-wide stop-offs to commuter towns.The Labour TD also said that he had already come across one excellent idea in the shape of a website advertising commuters" skills.'What I would be interested in doing is replicating the "It"s My Time" website for Kildare which advertises the skills of people who live there but don"t want to commute anymore.'Employers can log onto the site and match what they are looking forward to the skills shown. It"s a brilliant idea and would work brilliantly for Westmeath and in particular Mullingar.'I would say that commuting is a major social, financial and environmental problem for Mullingar and for Westmeath and it would represent a huge step forward if we were to cut down on the huge numbers of people who have to face the misery of travelling 20 hours a week just to get to work,' the TD said.