Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 14 Oct 1993

Vol. 434 No. 6

National Development Plan 1994-99: Statements.

The Taoiseach

I hope this debate will be about the National Development Plan 1994 to 1999 and not about side issues or the forthcoming budget in January next.

The spending of £20 billion in this small country provides us with a singular opportunity for our economic wellbeing. It is part of the overall Programme for Government to improve our economic wellbeing, tackle the serious unemployment position and, of course, in other ways to improve Irish society. In framing our National Development Plan the Government had three central objectives, which were: to increase and maintain employment; to reduce unemployment and, in particular, long term unemployment, and to eliminate the social exclusion of people and of the areas in which they live, caused by long term unemployment, disadvantage and poverty.

From 1993 to 1999 total EC aid to Ireland will amount to approximately £8 billion. That takes into account Structural Funds and the new Cohesion Fund coming on stream this year. In addition, the Irish public and private sectors will invest £12 billion, bringing the total package to the highest ever in Ireland at over £20 billion.

We must invest these resources wisely in order to achieve not only an impact on growth and jobs during the plan period but also lasting improvements in the economy that will deliver continuing growth and jobs into the next century.

Our aim is to transform this country by the end of the decade. The plan sets out the Government's strategy to achieve the national and European Community objective of greater economic and social cohesion. Our last plan increased our standard of living from 63 per cent to 73 per cent of the EC average although encountering a very severe world recession. This time we aim to close the gap still further.

The basic elements of our strategy are: firstly, investment in the growth potential of the economy in industry, in tourism and services, in agriculture and natural resources; secondly, investment in the country's productive infrastructure to improve the capacity and competitiveness of the economy; thirdly, investment in the development of the skills of our people through education and training in order to increase productivity and growth capacity; and, fourthly, a special increased emphasis on harnessing local community leadership and local initiative. This strategy will be given effect by a wide range of carefully selected development measures. I propose to give an overview of these measures which will be described in greater detail by individual Ministers during the course of this debate.

The main vehicle for direct job creation in the economy will continue to be industrial development. The industry programme therefore is one of the most important and largest programmes put forward in the plan. Total public — that is, national and EC — investment in industrial development will amount to almost £1.4 billion. Private sector investment associated with this public input will bring the total investment in industrial development to over £3.8 billion.

In the industry programme there will be increased emphasis on the development of indigenous industry, with support being directed at encouraging Irish-owned companies to build their competitive capability at firm level and at encouraging the development of capability and expansion of capacity at industry level. There will be special initiatives in key sectors with identified job creation capacity such as wood processing, the film industry, software and electronic services, aerospace and automobile components.

The attraction of inward investment is also essential to job creation. Resources will be devoted to the attraction of new industries in the sectors and market niches where this country has the greatest competitive advantages and also to the further development and expansion of foreign-owned firms already located in Ireland. The benefits of inward investment must be maximised by the development of linkages between Irish-owned and foreign-owned firms.

There will be increased resources for company-led research and development, coupled with support for the development of research and technology services in support of industry by Eolas and the higher education sector. Marketing development measures will support Irish companies in achieving sustainable market share, help to improve the marketing capability of Irish firms and increase the awareness of Irish firms and their products.

The food industry is one of the most important sectors of Irish industry, accounting for some 22 per cent of total exports and about 20 per cent of all manufacturing jobs. Because of its potential to create national wealth and employment, the development of a strong indigenous food industry is a key Government objective. There will be a new special sub-programme for the food industry to deliver an integrated and coherent development package, embracing capital investment, marketing, research and development and human resources measures.

The projections for job creation in the food industry shown in the National Development Plan can take account of the fact that the Irish food industry has already entered a phase of rapid change and development, including a very substantial increase in added-value production. Already we have a food industry of growing efficiency and sophistication; we are not starting from scratch.

Of course, the outcome of the GATT negotiations will be important for food sector exports, particularly in the beef, dairy and pigmeat sectors. As was made clear in the report of the Expert Group on the Food Industry published earlier this year, the outcome of the GATT negotiations will have an influence on export and production targets especially in pigmeat and cheese. Indeed that is one reason the Government is now doing its utmost to ensure that the final outcome of the GATT negotiations does not prevent growth in our food industry. It may well be that some rationalisation will be needed in coming years in some primary processing sectors of the food industry if they are to remain competitive. But I am confident that, with any reasonable GATT outcome, such job losses as may arise from rationalisation can be more than counter-balanced over the period of the National Development Plan — for instance, by growth in prepared consumer products and food ingredients. Those sectors, as well as drinks, in the main would not face the same risks under a GATT settlement as the primary sectors I have mentioned. In fact, if competitively produced, in many cases they could stand to gain from cuts in protection by third priority countries.

Agriculture and the food industry are vital elements not alone in the rural economy but also in the wider economy. Agriculture accounts for about 9 per cent of GDP and 13.3 per cent of employment. However the sector is characterised by persistent problems of a structural nature, such as declining numbers, an ageing population and a substantial number of farmers with low incomes coupled with significant underemployment. It is important that agriculture be integrated into a wide rural development framework and that other rural development measures are undertaken to generate the necessary income and employment levels to enable family farms to survive and to ensure the existence of a vibrant rural community.

Total expenditure, including associated private sector expenditure, in the areas of agriculture, rural development and forestry will be over £1,450 million. When investment in food, which I have already mentioned, and human resources is added, together with expected funding through Community initiatives and Common Agricultural Policy reform accompanying measures, the total package will be in the order of £3 billion, representing a similar percentage to the last National Development Plan.

Key features of this investment include increased investment to help farmers meet new dairy hygiene standards and animal welfare requirements, provide for pollution control and for animal housing and fodder storage facilities; continued support for producer groups with greater attention to the promotion of quality output and improvement of marketing strategies; funding for the Scheme of Installation Aid for young farmers; support for alternative farm enterprises and the development of rural tourism; increased resources for compensatory headage payments, including beef, suckler cow premia, and human resources measures by Teagasc in support of farming, related rural enterprises and rural development.

Taking all these measures together, including higher forestry and agri-environment subsidies, there will be a significant increase in income support for farmers. This is partially reflected in the big increase in farm incomes over the last two years. Despite having growth rates over three times the EC average, Ireland still has the lowest level of forestry in the Community. A planting programme of 30,000 hectares a year to the year 2000 is planned, along with back-up measures in forestry, training, roads and research and development. As I have said, the timber processing sector will be one of the key sectors for development under the industry programme.

The fishing sector has shown growth in recent years but remains underdeveloped. It offers potential for further development as a contributor to economic development in coastal areas and to output and exports nationally. Development measures will include fleet renewal through vessel construction and modernisation, aquaculture development involving both new installations and modernising existing areas, improved fish processing facilities, developments at fishery centres and fishery harbours and a programme of marine research.

The present operational programme for tourism has been very successful in terms of increased foreign tourism revenue and of the jobs that revenue creates. The new programme will build on that success and has the aim of achieving an increase of £1 billion, or 50 per cent in real terms, in foreign tourism revenue by the end of 1999. It will also aim at getting a much wider spread of tourist income throughout the year. Total investment in tourism, between the State, the EC and the private sector, will be over £580 million to 1999.

There will be increased investment in marketing and training, investments in product for specialist tourists such as activity holidays and language learning and a programme of investment to upgrade and improve tourist angling waters and our canals. Ireland will be established in the top league of international conference venues with a major new conference centre planned for Dublin. There will be accelerated investment in arts, culture and heritage projects.

Investment of over £2.6 billion is planned in transport infrastructure. The primary objectives of transport investment in the period will be to improve internal and access transport infrastructure and facilities on an integrated basis, and to improve the reliability of the transport system.

We will continue to invest heavily in improving the national primary and secondary road network concentrating on four key corridors — north-south, southwest, east-west and the western corridor linking Sligo, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Rosslare. There will also be an increased investment effort in regional and local roads of importance to local economic development. Under this plan there will be an increased role for public transport. There will be a major investment in upgrading of the mainline rail links. The Dublin Transportation Initiative will be substantially advanced, including a light rail system, completion of the Dublin Ring Road, an efficient access route to Dublin port, quality bus corridors, upgrading existing suburban rail services and improved traffic management.

Investment will also take place in the strategic ports of Dublin, Dun Laoghaire, Waterford, Cork, Rosslare and the Shannon estuary and in the State airports at Dublin, Shannon and Cork.

Environmental infrastructure is important from the point of view of both contributing to the development of industry and tourism and protecting and enhancing our quality of life. There will be substantial direct investment of £655 million in environmental services. This will include investment in water and sanitary services, new and improved sewage treatment systems, projects designed to improve the quality of drinking water and the establishment of an adequate and integrated network of waste disposal installations, with appropriate provision for hazardous and non-hazardous waste.

We intend to have a national clean up of litter and waste and a thorough and substantial improvement in our water and sewage treatment systems to preserve a green and healthy environment for our people. Projects will include major coastal sewage treatment schemes in Cork, Dublin, Dundalk, Greystones, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Westport and major water schemes in Dublin, Limerick and Tuam.

Total expenditure in the energy sector will be over £2.1 billion and policy will focus on tackling the factors which induce uncompetitive energy changes in the economy as well as maximising fuel consumption and energy infrastructure efficiencies. Structural Funds aid will be directed at key strategic projects including a peat-fired generating station, an energy efficiency scheme, pilot projects in the development of cutaway bogs, rural energy networks and the extension of the natural gas supply to the Shannon area.

There will be investment of over £850 million in telecommunications over the period. The objective is to increase the penetration of the system from 70 to 82 telephones per 100 households. The investment proposed will facilitate the completion of digitalisation, the expansion of the fibre optical network, significant improvements in international access and further developments in mobile services.

Investment of £60 million in the postal services will include measures for the extension of the post office computer system in rural areas and the construction of modern mail centres located in the regions.

The Government have included a major health investment project, Tallaght Hospital, in this plan. Work on the construction of the hospital is due to commence next month and will finish within three and a halt years from the end of this year. This new acute general teaching hospital will fill a major gap in the development needs of what is now the third largest urban centre in the State.

The development of our human resources is essential to future growth and employment creation. Almost £3.1 billion is to be invested in human resources over the period of the plan. The main objectives in this area will be to ensure the competitiveness of Irish industry and services through the supply of highly qualified and skilled personnel; to equip enterprise and workers with the skills necessary to cope with occupational, structural and technological change; to improve the attractiveness of Ireland as a location for new enterprise by having a highly educated, skilled, adaptable and versatile workforce; to promote equality in access to jobs and training and to help overcome disadvantage; and to maintain and enhance participation rates in education and training for the disadvantaged.

The National Development Plan places a major emphasis on local development, building on the experience already gained from the Pilot Area Programme in Integrated Rural Development 1988-1990, the current Leader programme, the area-based initiatives under the Programme for Economic and Social Progress, the Third EC Poverty Programme and the EC Global Grant for local development. All indicate that there is considerable potential to be tapped at local level to tackle long term unemployment and to generate local development. Inherent in that programme is the targeting of areas and communities characterised by long term unemployment and social exclusion.

The sum of £1.143 million will be available to the local development programme over the period of the plan. The programme will have four elements: a countrywide local enterprise sub programme to be administered through the county enterprise boards. The boards will provide support for local enterprise initiatives and will fill a gap which has been identified in the current support services for local enterprise initiatives. A sum of £114 million will be available, from the Exchequer alone, for this programme over the period of the plan; an area-based local development programme for areas characterised by a high concentration of long term unemployment, social exclusion and environmental deprivation. This measure extends the pilot initiative of area partnership companies introduced under the Programme for Economic and Social Progress which has yielded significant results in terms of enterprise and employment, community development and improved services for long term unemployed. A sum of £100 million will be available for this programme over the period of the plan; a substantially expanded community employment development programme (CEDP) which will replace the countrywide social employment scheme. The CEDP contains a combination of training inputs and community work on employment specifically targeted in the long term unemployed areas. The total available under this measure is £813 million; an urban renewal programme which will improve the fabric of the local environment with emphasis on architectural conservation and streetscapes. A second part of this sub programme is the completion of a range of cultural facilities in the Temple Bar area of Dublin. The urban renewal programme involves expenditure of £116 million over the period of the plan.

The Government has, as part of a determination to further the local dimension of development, introduced an important new element for this National Development Plan in order that people throughout the country can better understand how the plan will affect their area. Statements of the integrated developments proposed in each sub-region are now being prepared and will be available shortly for that purpose.

In implementing the development measures under the plan we will ensure that there is no direct or indirect discrimination on grounds of gender and will actively promote equal opportunities for both genders.

I am disappointed at the lack of welcome for the plan so far by the Opposition parties. Do they fail to understand the huge difference it will make to their areas? Having failed to find anything to criticise in the plan, the burden of their complaint seems to be that it is not the budget, which deals with areas which were never intended for the plan. This is an investment plan, an investment project, and should be debated on its merits. Let us have the budget debate next January when it is more appropriate.

Mr. Yates

The Taoiseach said it was a jobs plan.

The Taoiseach

I hope we will then hear some constructive ideas from the Opposition benches. Some Opposition Deputies who appear to have no interest or belief in the value of stimulating investment have commented that the spending under this plan will not contribute to job creation.

Mr. Yates

And the last plan.

The Taoiseach

Such suggestions are totally at variance with the facts. Under this plan there will be an industry operational programme from which funds will be provided for the 120,000 jobs that will be created in projects supported by the IDA and the new Forbairt in the years to 1999.

Under this plan £600 million will be spent on tourism, which will support the creation of 30,000 jobs in the years to 1999. The sum of £3 billion will be spent on agriculture, forestry and fisheries which will support the creation of 6,000 jobs in the period to 1999.

The plan includes £2.6 billion to be spent on transport, which in improving the infrastructure will result in the creation of 14,000 jobs in the wider economy between now and 1999.

A total of £1.26 billion will be spent on local development projects, which will create 21,000 jobs in the period to 1999.

In addition, an annual average of 20,000 construction jobs will be created on roads, railways, ports, tourism, environmental services and urban renewal. This is the factual position. Jobs will be created in significant numbers.

The Minister for Finance in his contribution to this debate will outline in detail the macroeconomic context both current and prospective. Our performance has outpaced that of our EC partners in recent years but our needs are also greater than theirs. Most importantly, unemployment here remains higher as a proportion of the labour force than in any other EC country except Spain. Our natural rate of labour force increase is well above the EC average. Although there has been some catching up in recent years, income per head in Ireland is still well below the EC average. Reducing unemployment and narrowing this gap in living standards are two of our foremost economic challenges.

Ultimately, the response to both these challenges — the need to create many more jobs and to bring living standards closer to the EC average — will have to come through efforts to accelerate the growth of market-led output. We have learnt from experience that the scope for direct job creation by the State in our circumstances is severely limited. In setting out growth and employment targets in the plan we recognised that policies and developments outside the ambit of the plan would have a major influence on these targets. As I have said, this plan is not the budget. Accordingly, the plan sets out both the relatively modest targets that we are confident can be achieved by the plan investments and the targets of much higher growth and employment that could be achieved if competitiveness improves and if developments in the world economy are more favourable.

Economic commentators are saying our job targets and growth targets are too cautious and they believe we will do better. The development measures in the plan should, across the various sectors, produce over 200,000 jobs gross. Some of these are long term; some are short term arising from project construction. Without plan investments, we would not have these jobs. This does not mean that the numbers of those at work will increase by 200,000 over the period of the plan. Many of the short term jobs will replace current short term jobs and experience shows that some of the new long term jobs will be offset by job losses elsewhere. Our best estimate is that there will be net non-agricultural job growth of between 70,000 and 100,000 over the period of the plan, depending on the level of wage competitiveness achieved and the strength of growth in the world economy.

Last year, whereas employment was stable in Ireland, if fell in the EC as a whole. This year, some increase in the total at work is expected in Ireland, but the rate of decline in employment in the EC is expectd to accelerate. In 1994 employment growth in Ireland is expected to accelerate but it is expected to continue falling in the EC. The fact that we can expect employment in Ireland to increase in an unfavourable international economic climate means that it can grow very fast indeed when the international upturn comes. This is clear from our experience when the combination of our sound economic policies and a favourable international economy meant an increase in the total at work of 36,000 in the 12 months to April 1990. This was not a freak; given a recovery in the international economy and the additional boost to the productive capacity of the economy resulting from the National Development Plan we have every reason to look forward to strong employment growth in the years ahead.

What is necessary now from all of us is a national commitment in support of the jobs that this plan can deliver. The estimates for jobs in the plan are modest. Many say they are pessimistic. Their achievement then is realistic.

The Government will work to continue to provide the macro-economic stability essential to job creation and maintenance which we have had, especially since 1987. This involves: fiscal policy set in the framework of the Maastricht convergence criteria and disciplined management of the public finances consistent with exchange rate stability and moderate interest rates.

The Government will, with all the social partners, shortly embark on the negotiations for a new national programme. The Government are satisfied that with goodwill a programme can be negotiated to underpin an improvement in Ireland's competitiveness relative to our trading partners. This is vital for jobs.

The Government are also satisfied, following on their discussions with ICTU yesterday, that all sides can, as constructively as they had in the Programme for National Recovery and the Programme for Economic and Social Progress, reach agreement on tax changes, in particular for the benefit of the lower paid in employment, that will contribute positively to the objectives for employment. They are satisfied that the successful negotiation of a new programme will allow the freeing of resources to enable us to continue and strengthen the process of tax reform while ensuring the high standard of public services we can all agree on.

I look to constructive backing from this House. We can then proceed to negotiate the Community support framework with the European Commission. This is the essential next step so that European funds can flow, from next year to 1999, to support the jobs in this country that can and must come on stream in those years. It is sheer nonsense to suggest that the spending of £20,000 million, our largest ever development project, will not result in a transformation of a country with 3.5 million people. Change will come and come successfully.

Mr. J. Bruton

Before I speak on the details of this plan let me say a few words about the role of the Opposition. The job of the Opposition is to wake the Irish people from sleepy consensus on every public issue. We appear to be living in an era of icons rather than ideas. People follow the icon rather than argue the ideas. On every issue, Northern Ireland, jobs, pay, social legislation, there is a tendency to demand consensus and deprecate controversy. The social partners and others who have bought into this process seem to forget that consensus is worth having only after it has been preceded by rigorous public controversy on the choices to be made. The role of the Opposition in the Dáil is to ask the hard questions, argue the options and ensure we have a proper debate. The Irish people have been offered no policy choices at all on the national plan. The Taoiseach does not want us to have policy choices on Northern Ireland either because he refused yesterday to allow the Dáil debate Northern Ireland. Let me remind the Taoiseach that in dealing with Northern Ireland we are not negotiating with some foreign power, some enemy from whom we must conceal our mind and our hand. We are talking about the futue of our fellow Irishmen — Unionist and Nationalist — and on this matter the Taoiseach should be as willing to hear the views of Members as he is to hear whatever other views he is getting directly or indirectly from other quarters.

The same suppression of direct argument has taken place on this National Development Plan. The Government has refused to allow the Dáil to debate a motion on this subject; instead it just wants a series of anodyne statements that lead to no conclusion or decision. Likewise, the Irish people were not allowed to have a fully informed debate on all the options for this plan until after a final decision was first taken by the Government and its close advisers. The job of the Dáil, and of the Opposition, is to ensure that the Irish people get value for money for the huge investment Europe is now making in Ireland through this plan. Unfortunately, the Government has not allowed the Dáil to do this job properly.

Unlike the authorities in Northern Ireland, our Government did not publish a draft plan before sending anything to Brussels to allow the public and their representatives to look at the whole picture, to see how money could be reallocated from one area to another in order to get better value. Instead the Irish people were treated like children — asked for their wish lists of pet local projects, but not allowed to see a draft plan which showed the whole financial picture and the real choices that had to be made.

We would have had a much better plan, with much wider public support, if the Government had allowed the committees of the Dáil and local groups throughout the country to examine a draft plan line by line, before a submission was made to Brussels. This was done in Northern Ireland. Why was it not done here? Because the plan was not debated in draft form by the people in this way, it is a misnomer to call it a "national" plan. It is a Government plan, a Fianna Fáil/Labour plan, but not truly a national plan.

It is also too narrowly focused to merit the description of a "development" plan. It is solely concerned with those aspects of development which qualify for EC subsidies. Many of the important factors affecting national development do not qualify for EC subsidies and for this reason the Government has not bothered to include them in this plan at all. These omissions are in some respects much more important than the matters that are included. The plan would have had a much better chance of achieving its laudably ambitious targets if it had dealt with all aspects of national development at the same time in the same document. The good that will undoubtedly be done by some of the things included in this plan may be undone by failures in the areas that have been omitted.

The following five matters have not been dealt with in any serious way in this plan. The penal effect that the income tax and PRSI systems have in increasing the cost of employing people and the consequent reduction in the overall number of jobs on offer. The imprisonment of people by the poverty traps caused by the maze of means tests, entitlement cut offs, and discriminatory treatment of children in the tax and social welfare codes. The absence of any effective competition policy, backed by an adequately staffed competition authority, with power to initiate inquiries into overcharging and other cosy ripoffs in this country. The lack of a comprehensive plan to stop children leaving school too early, and becoming long-term unemployed, by introducing early assessment, home visits, parental education and timely remedial help. The failure to put job security at the top of the industrial relations agenda, and to give retraining, worker shareholding and work sharing a higher priority than short-term profits, short-term wage increases and tax subsidised redundancies. These are the very issues this Government urges the EC to deal with in its submission on the EC Commission White Paper on employment, yet it is not bothered to deal with them at home in its own national plan.

The Irish system of public administration has ordered its work priorities around whether a particular activity qualifies for EC funds rather than around whether it is worthwhile in itself. This is self defeating. Unless changes are made in tax, social welfare, education, competition policy and industrial relations, these EC moneys will not achieve their full potential. This is no mere academic point. The last plan did not achieve its full potential precisely because of this warping of priorities in Irish public administration. The 1989-93 plan set out to create 175,000 jobs. However, it created only 80,000, 70,000 more were lost, thus leaving a net increase of only 10,000. Meanwhile 98,000 extra people emigrated and 63,000 extra people joined the dole queue. Let me take a longer time frame, lest I be accused of being politically partisan.

The Taoiseach

I would never accuse the Deputy of that.

Mr. J. Bruton

Since this State was founded one million people have emigrated and 95,000 fewer people are now at work here than in 1921. In 1921 Ireland's population was almost half that of the Netherlands, now it is only a quarter. In 1921 Ireland had the same population as Denmark, now we have less than three quarters their population. Yet those two countries were invaded, while we escaped the last war.

To have a good long-term plan we must find out where Ireland failed, and where those countries succeeded. Part of the answer lies in the neglect of science and technical studies in the Irish educational system. In Ireland only 17 per cent of students do technical apprenticeships. In Denmark the figure is 71 per cent, and in the Netherlands it is 60 per cent. Only 17 per cent of Irish students do science in the leaving, as against 69 per cent doing languages. Yet, our proficiency in even one continental language lags far behind the proficiency of the Danes and the Dutch in both English and German. Danish and Dutch companies spend generously on in-service training of their employees. Irish companies spend as little as possible.

A recent NESC study showed that in comparison with those two countries Irish companies have a poor record in developing new higher quality products. The NESC is very clear on what should be done about this. The NESC report states that "management development is the strategic priority in the development of education and training policies for economic development". I have studied this National Development Plan. The plan has not acted on that vital NESC recommendation in regard to what the national priority should be. Huge sums are to be spent on grants for industry, but little or nothing is to be spent on training the top people in industry who are supposed to manage that money on our behalf and who until now have made a poor job of managing it in indigenous firms.

This is not the only area where in-service training is lacking. Ireland is paying a huge price for its failure to invest properly in in-service training of teachers. We spend less on such training than most European countries. Most of our teachers have not been on an in-service training course for ten or so years. It is impossible for them to keep up with changes in technology and society without ongoing training. In-service training of teachers would be the single best investment we could now make.

I do not have the time available to do a line by line analysis of the plan. It is interesting to compare it with the last one. There is a big change in transport priorities. In the last plan £397 million was spent on ports. That is now cut back to just £100 million. In contrast, the amount spent on railways is to increase tenfold from £45 million to £475 million.

This change in priority is not explained at all; indeed, the comparisons are not easy to make because of the peculiar changes that have been made in the format of the two documents.

In their assessment of transport policy in the last plan the ESRI gave some advice about rail development which I fear the Government may have ignored. The ESRI report stated that "mainline rail investment should be evaluated on the same basis as road investment, with resources allocated to whichever provides the best return". It warned against duplicating rail and road investment on the same routes, while leaving other parts of the country inadequately covered either by a good railway or a good road. Yet that is exactly what seems to have happened. If one looks at the maps at the back of the plan, the big new road developments and the big new rail developments, both seem to run along the same arterial routes. This plan is supposed to be part of an overall plan for the European economy. Ireland's economy will only succeed if Europe's economy succeeds.

Much has been written about the uncompetitiveness and slow employment growth of Europe, as against those of Japan and America. Employment has grown in Europe by 10 per cent since 1960, as against 80 per cent growth in the United States. I invite the Taoiseach to inquire on one of his frequent visits to the United States why that has happened.

The Taoiseach

Does the Deputy believe I should not go?

Mr. J. Bruton

The Taoiseach will find, contrary to the foolish case he made here at Question Time on Tuesday, that the level of taxes on employment in the United States is the key reason more new employment has been created in the United States than in Europe or in Ireland.

On a $20,000 gross salary, an American employer will only have to deduct $6,340 in taxes and PRSI whereas an Irish employer wil have to deduct the equivalent of $11,932. That is why US employers are willing to employ more people. That is why young Irish people are looking for Morrison visas, rather than young American people looking for Reynolds visas.

The Taoiseach

Who pays for their health and education?

Mr. J. Bruton

That is not the only reason.

A Deputy

The Government is relying on emigration to solve the unemployment problem.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. J. Bruton

The Taoiseach knows that the United States spends more on health care than we do.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. J. Bruton

The exchange rate of all European currencies has been kept high but that is not the only reason for the failure of Ireland and Europe to create jobs, particularly in the last decade. The exchange rate of all European currencies has been kept incompetively high for the last ten years. This is because of the undue influence of the Bundesbank, of the fear of inflation and of a paranoid European attachment to particular values for national currencies as symbols of national prestige.

European currency policies have the effective of maintaining an artificially high purchasing power — which may not be accidential — for the salaries of top policy makers who make currency policy and hold secure jobs. Meanwhile Europe's growing army of unemployed are left as the only people who are asked to pay the price for Europe's uncompetitive economy.

Currency policy is a form of income redistribution. Artificially high currency values redistribute income from the poor to the rich. The next time Ministers, including the Tánaiste, bishops and commentators decides to attack currency traders, they should pause to ask who are the real speculators in Europe's economy.

Irish agriculture is in current difficulty because it has engaged in short term thinking for the 30 years. Not since the publication of "Economic Development" by T.K. Whitaker, has there been any real long term thinking about the future potential of this major Irish industry.

The Government and the farming organisations should recognise that there is no long term future for Irish farming in reliance on income supports and quotas. These palliatives may serve the needs of the present generation of farmers, but they do not provide a basis for attracting young people into the industry. Young people are needed in agriculture as in other areas of economic activity.

The debate in Irish agriculture should be about the future for the young people who will enter agriculture in the next ten years. Now is the time for Ireland to start preparing for the post-GATT round world.

I call on the Government to commission a major research project to identify the areas of agriculture where Ireland is likely to have a competitive advantage in a free trading environment. We should then campaign for changes in EC agriculture policies that will allow Ireland to develop comparative advantage. Present policies present Ireland from exploiting its full agricultural potential and, if unchanged, will continue to do so.

From the very outset of the present GATT round, the United States was harping on about agricultural subsidies. Before one gets carried away by the free trade rhetoric of the United States, it is worth recalling two facts. First, it was the United States that originally sought, in 1959, to have agriculture excluded from normal world trade disciplines.

Second the United States is not pursuing the same free trade approach in other areas of the world trade talks. For example, the United States is seeking to exclude sea transport, telecommunications, financial and air transport services from GATT rules that would bar countries from discriminating in favour of domestic companies. The United States is also opposing the proposed new powers of the multilateral trading organisation which will enable it to enforce new world trade rules. Enforcement is the biggest weakness in the present GATT arrangements. The United States wants to retain the discretion to impose unilateral sanctions under its infamous section 301. The United States is protectionist and the European Community has failed to point that out. As a result the European Community and Ireland are in a corner in regard to agriculture because they have not carried the argument to the United States in the areas where the United States is weakest. That is a serious failure of negotiation on the part of the Irish Government and the EC for which I hold the Taoiseach, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry and the Minister for Tourism and Trade personally responsible.

Whatever the detailed outcome of the current round of negotiations it is likely that there will be a gradual liberalisation in world agricultural trade over the next ten to 15 years.

As Dr. G.E. Boyle said in his recent study "The Competitiveness of Irish Agriculture", "The ultimate thrust of the GATT and CAP reform proposals in train at the present time is for an agriculture which is market led". This is not necessarily bad news for Ireland, in the long run. The study by Dr. Boyle showed that Irish agriculture is actually more competitive than agriculture in other EC countries. We should therefore be better able to hold our own in an open world market than most other EC states. That does not mean that the transition to free trade would be an easy one, but it does mean that we could survive, while others would go to the wall.

Having reviewed the milk, cattle, cereals and lamb sectors, Dr. Boyle concluded that "Ireland is more efficient than its competitors anywhere in the world in milk and cereal production, but less competitive in beef and sheep meat." The general thrust of Dr. Boyle's paper which has been completely neglected in the discussion on the National Development Plan and generally in debate has been that Ireland could gain, in the long run, from the freeing of world trade. Ireland has a natural competitive advantage. Therefore we should be looking for policies in the EC that allow Ireland gradually to strengthen its agriculture in those areas where it has a competitive advantage. This will not happen unless the Government is willing to invest in identifying those areas where we have a competitive advantage. The Government has not undertaken any recent analysis on the worldwide competitiveness of Irish agriculture. It has no strategy for Irish agriculture. There is no national agricultural plan. It is simply a question of waiting for the EC to make the decisions and then trying to get as much money as possible from the EC. The research that should have taken place to enable us on scientific evidence to identify and build on our competitive advantage in agriculture has been axed by successive Governments as a short term financial economy measure.

Since 1981 State expenditure on agricultural research has been cut by 50 per cent. The Government seems to think that unless there is an EC subsidy for something in the agricultural area, it should not be funded. As a result, Ireland spends only one-fifth as much per acre on agricultural research as the Netherlands and only five or six people are involved in serious beef research here. The age profile of those engaged in agricultural research is too high. It is well known that original research tends to come from younger people and the age profile here, where the average age is about 50, is probably the highest in the world.

Even if we were carrying out the necessary research on our long term comparative advantage, present EC policies stop us from redirecting our efforts towards areas where we have a long term potential for growth because we are limited by quotas which prevent efficient people from expanding. All the major agricultural products we produce are subject to some form of quota control. Quota-based policies are anathema to the exploitation of competitive advantage. Unless we are resigned, as the Government seems to be, to the fact that our agriculture will never be competitive in the world market, then quota-based policies are not the best policies for Ireland. As Dr. Boyle pointed out, a quota system establishes a monopoly in production rights and, like any monopoly, it has inevitable economic costs. He also made the point that a quota-based system reduces the incentive to engage in the research that would improve production efficiency. He said that a quota environment engenders myopia and the incentive to conduct research and development becomes increasingly blunted. These policies must be changed because many people can gain a living from the land and from the markets. As long as the neglect of research continues, and as long as the quota policies prevent efficient Irish farmers from increasing production, we will not be able to preserve any viable jobs in rural Ireland. We will simply turn rural Ireland into a glorified retirement home and that is not a desirable future for anybody.

One of the most serious deficiencies in this plan is its failure to analyse Ireland's long term comparative agricultural advantage. We have looked at how we can get more money from the EC, and how we can maintain incomes in agriculture but we have not looked at our future, at the fact that there is substantial potential for expansion in agriculture or at the fact that Ireland is more efficient in certain aspects of agriculture than any other country, but has been prevented from exploiting that efficiency by the imposition of quotas.

The outcome of this plan might be that we will have better roads to get our people to the emigrant planes quickly and to allow imports to reach markets in most remote parts of Ireland but we might not necessarily provide permanent jobs for our people. We will not provide permanent jobs because this is only an investment plan in physical infrastructure and in some aspects of training. The plan does not address the blockages in the system, in our competition policy, our tax policy or in our social welfare policy that prevent any investment coming into this economy, from flowing through the economy achieving the maximum multiplier effect and the maximum job creation.

Of course, this money is welcome. We are entitled to it and those who negotiated are entitled to credit for getting it, but we are likely to lose the greater gain due to our obsession with our success in the smaller gain, because we have not taken the parallel steps necessary to remove the blockages in the economy so as to ensure that we get full value from this money.

Fine Gael will harp on that point and we will not be deterred by those who suggest that we do not really need a debate on this. A very unhealthy atmosphere is developing in politics here. Deputy Lenihan, for example, suggested that nobody was entitled to question Northern Ireland policy in this State, that journalists were not allowed to question it and now it seems that politicians will not be allowed to question it either, because the Taoiseach will not allow the Dáil to debate Northern Ireland. Yet, those who are still engaged in terrorism are to be allowed to pass messages to the Taoiseach while we cannot do so. The atmosphere which does not allow open debate, whether on the national plan or on Northern Ireland, does not give us a chance of getting the best out of our people.

The Government should recognise that it would have benefited and would still benefit from allowing freely expressed criticism about a draft development plan if it had the courage to publish it in April and that we would have had a better plan now if the Government had been open about this. The Government is simply telling the people that it will not disclose the overall picture and that it wants the people's ideas on some matters while it will make all the decisions. The Government, by approaching the matter in this paternalistic way, has failed to achieve the full potential of the people. Thousands of people who are not programme managers or civil servants have good ideas but they have not been taken into the Government's confidence. Members on this side of the House who have good ideas would be willing and able to make a constructive contribution and offer constructive criticism of proposals but they have not been allowed do so.

This plan was sent to Brussels before it was published here. It was sent to Brussels last Friday and we did not get it until Tuesday. Is there any greater illustration of the closed nature of Irish politics and the deadeningly complacent consensus that the Government knows best and that nobody else should have anything to say, than the fact that the Government sent its plan to Brussels before allowing the Irish people to see it, let alone debate it? That is what is wrong with public administration here and with a Government with a majority of 38. Only a Government with such a majority would be so smug to think it can get away with anything, that it can produce speeches and statements like those by Deputy Lenihan to wave aside anybody who wants to express a dissenting view and that nobody else is entitled to speak except the Government and its chosen friends.

In the Fine Gael Party there are 45 Deputies who do not accept that cosy consensus, who will insist on their right to speak and criticise. The Government if it has a proposal should have the courage to put it to a vote in the House and not simply ask for a series of anodyne statements without allowing Members to put an alternative proposal to the House.

The Taoiseach

I did not hear any alternative.

Miss Harney

I am very disappointed that we are not having a proper debate on this plan. We do not have a motion before us although the Taoiseach asked for the support of the House. In his speech the Taoiseach said "I look to constructive backing from this House". Yet, when we asked for a motion to be put to the House, when we might have been in a position to give the Taoiseach our backing for this plan, our request was refused. The Taoiseach cannot have it both ways. This is not an economic plan, a business plan or a plan for jobs; it is a plan to spend money and has all the hallmarks of Santa Claus. The Taoiseach even asked if the Opposition fáil to understand the huge difference it will make to their areas. Ministers travelled around their constituencies to pick out projects, in Santa Claus fashion, for inclusion in the plan.

I ask the Taoiseach to tell us if this is a plan for the period 1993 to 1999, as he said in his speech, or for the period 1994 to 1999, as stated on the cover of the plan. It is stated on the cover of the plan that it will run from 1994 but it is stated in the introduction to the plan, on page 7, that it will run from 1993.

The Taoiseach

The Deputy should ask her deputy leader to explain how it works.

Miss Harney

I will explain it to the Taoiseach.

Mr. J. Bruton

The Taoiseach blames the typist.

Miss Harney

The £8 billion that we will receive from Europe will cover the period from 1993 to 1999. The Taoiseach has included the final £1 billion from the last round of Structural Funds. He has included the £1 billion that is due to be paid in 1993.

The Taoiseach

That is a good try.

Miss Harney

That is the reason the figure is £8 billion, that it is stated on the cover that the plan covers the period 1994 to 1999 and in the introduction to the plan, on page 7, that it covers the period 1993 to 1999.

The Taoiseach

If the Deputy wants to hear the truth, the financial perspectives ended in 1992. Deputy Cox would be delighted to educate the Deputy.

Miss Harney

I did not interrupt the Taoiseach——

The Taoiseach

I am trying to educate the Deputy.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy in possession should be allowed to continue without interruption.

Mr. M. McDowell

One would think that even the Taoiseach would get the first page right.

The Taoiseach

The Deputy would not know if the first or last page was right and he never did.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Harney is in possession and should be allowed to continue without interruption.

(Interruptions.)

Miss Harney

I wish I did not have to upset the Taoiseach so much on the first occasion I speak as party Leader.

The Taoiseach

The Deputy should stick to the facts.

Miss Harney

I am the Leader of an Opposition party and it is my duty in this House to lead the Opposition to the Government. We have a Government which has shown unrivalled complacency——

The Taoiseach

Deputy Bruton should watch out.

Miss Harney

Would the Taoiseach please listen and not interrupt?

A Deputy

The Taoiseach is nervous.

The Taoiseach

I am directing Deputy Bruton's attention to the fact that the Deputy is going to lead the Opposition.

Miss Harney

We have a Taoiseach and a Government who have shown unrivalled complacency. Let me quote the words used by Kenneth Galbraith, which I have changed slightly to suit the occasion: "This Government has much of the rhetoric of intention and that far outstrips its appetite for action." Fianna Fáil seems to think it has found a formula to stay in Government permanently because it has a compliant partner in the Labour Party.

On the question of Northern Ireland, I want to make it perfectly clear that I do not wish to have a debate here. It may not be helpful. There is no point having a debate when we would not know what we were debating but I reject the Taoiseach's refusal to give private briefings to the leaders of the Opposition parties. This is highly irresponsible and if the Taoiseach thinks he is going to get a blank cheque from me, as leader of the Progressive Democrats, he had better think again because he is not. It is not fair of the Taoiseach to expect us to give our support for something when we do not know what it is about. It is time the Taoiseach gave private briefings. I ask him again to do so.

The Taoiseach

What happened in the case of the Anglo-Irish Agreement?

Miss Harney

Unlike the Taoiseach, I voted for the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

Mr. M. McDowell

The Taoiseach did not vote for it.

Miss Harney

Therefore the Taoiseach need not tell me about the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

The Taoiseach

Was there consultation?

Mr. M. McDowell

Everytime the Taoiseach opens his mouth he puts his foot in it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Harney should be allowed to continue without interruption, please.

Mr. E. Kenny

I will send for Deputy Gay Mitchell to keep the Deputy quiet.

Miss Harney

My final comment on the question of Northern Ireland is that the Taoiseach should not negotiate with terrorists. That is all I ask him.

The Taoiseach

The Deputy should ask the Irish people that.

Miss Harney

I am asking the Taoiseach, and I hope there is no doubt about that.

The Taoiseach

I hope the Deputy will read the opinion polls.

Miss Harney

Seventy per cent of the people want peace. That is what I also want.

The Taoiseach

Precisely.

Mr. J. Bruton

There should be no talks with Sinn Fein until they give up violence.

The Taoiseach

I have said that often enough.

Miss Harney

The Irish Commissioner, Mr. Flynn, whom I know very well, said of the 1977 Fianna Fáil manifesto that it was the greatest publication since the bible. I think we could say of this plan that it is probably the second greatest publication since the Bible and will be much quoted but when it comes to action it will do little.

The Taoiseach may ask what is wrong with the plan. It is a Santa Claus plan to spend money. It is a bit like having a house with rising damp, where the roof is leaking and there is dry rot. What does the Government do? It builds on an annex and employs the most expensive interior designer to paint and decorate the building. It will look good for a short time but before long the rot will spread and the house will collapse. That is the problem with the economy; we have fundamental problems which have not been addressed in the plan.

Last night I watched the Minister of State on television deal with some of the contradictions in the plan. She said it was not the budget, that the question of tax reform would be dealt with in the budget. We have had one budget from the Government in which a 1 per cent income levy was imposed, jobs were taxed and the rate of VAT on the intensive labour sectors, such as clothing, was increased to 21 per cent. We are already aware of the Government's attitude to taxation. Tackling job creation without addressing the question of tax reform is like filling a bucket that has no bottom with water. This makes no sense. It is not sustainable and and will do nothing to generate employment for those coming onto the labour market, never mind those who are unemployed at present.

Even if we accept the Taoiseach's figure and include 1993 — perhaps the Government thinks that the £8 billion from the European Community is free money — between now and the year 2000 we will spend £8 billion on the 300,000 people who are currently unemployed. That is the amount we will spend at current prices even if no more are added to the unemployment figures. As the Taoiseach is aware, economic forecasters have already said that by the end of the plan there will be 400,000 people unemployed. This is a plan to spend money in a Santa Claus fashion around the country.

The Culliton report has been ignored by the Government. We have new Departments and 26 new county enterprise boards. What has been done in regard to Culliton's desire to have lower telecommunications costs? The Taoiseach made great play of the fact that £850 million will be allocated for telecommunications, but would it not be much better to keep the prices down instead of increasing them? We should provide competition for Telecom Eireann. Why has the cost of international calls come down? The answer is that Telecom Eireann was faced with competition from abroad and had no alternative but to bring its prices down. The local customer and the ordinary small business person will have to pay higher costs. This flies in the face of the Culliton report.

Culliton told us that we need to reduce our energy costs but I wonder if the Taoiseach's commitment to spend more money on peat generation will lead to a reduction in energy costs. I would like to hear the Taoiseach's and the Government's response. Where is the economic sense in this?

Not only was the Culliton report ignored when this Government's structures were put in place — we have a new Department of Trade — it was ignored when this plan was put together. That is disappointing. We should not engage in rhetoric claiming to support the Culliton report unless the important proposals contained in the report will be put into effect from day one. Time is running out for the economy.

The Taoiseach may be upset when I say this is not a business plan but I can do no better than quote what one business person had to say. We have all heard of Bewleys and know of Patrick Campbell. Indeed, when the Labour Party was last in Government it was proposed that a State board —"An Bord Bun"— should be established to run it.

Mr. Gilmore

A sticky bun.

Miss Harney

I would like to quote what Patrick Campbell said because the interests of small businesses were not taken into account in this plan. In an article in the business section of The Sunday Tribune of 10 October 1993 he stated:

We employ nearly 2,000 in this country and will retain our roots in Ireland, but our plans for further growth must focus on economies where our enterprise can breathe freely, and where hard work and perseverence are valued and respected. In two more years, we expect to employ 1,000 people in other countries. In five years time we will probably employ more people abroad than we do in Ireland.

He went on to say:

Guinness did it a long time ago, Jacobs did it a short time ago. Irish Distillers is French, Jacobs too. Geoff Reid has even called it a day at Ballygowan. What's been happening to all our indigenous industry, and why?

He spoke about the high levels of taxation. I could quote the whole article and it would say succinctly what I myself believe. He went on to say:

The business sector and the PAYE workers bemoan their tax burdens and bicker about who is paying the lion's share. The Government is over-managing the economy through the introduction of restrictive regulations which have undermined competitiveness and draconian measures which cause many ordinary business people to feel threatened and alarmed.

That is the view not just of Patrick Campbell but of almost every business person that I know. A small business person setting up a corner shop, perhaps providing freight and haulier business, has to pay seven different taxes to the Government before he earns a penny or employs anybody. That is not only economic madness but bureaucratic nonsense. Until we get the fundamentals right in the economy, make it rewarding for people to employ others, reward effort and enterprise and make people who have flair and are prepared to take the risks feel important and not as if they are doing something wrong and should go somewhere else, they will leave their money in the bank and, for most of them, that would be far more financially gainful but would not be productive to the economy. We have to export two-thirds of what we make if we are to sustain existing jobs. There is no point in throwing money around like confetti. We have spent billions over the years but unemployment continues to rise. At the end of the day, unless we get the fundamentals right, we will have 400,000 people unemployed resulting in huge alienation not just from the institutions of State but from the country itself.

In Ireland we have a very young population. We have the best educated English-speaking population in Europe. It is time we recognised the talents of our own population, inspired hope in people, made people want to do something for Ireland and for themselves. It is time we fostered the concept of self-reliance. Helping those who want to help themselves is my solution to our economic problems. Most people want to help themselves. They do not want handouts and they do not want people to do things for them. What they want is to be allowed to get on with their own lives and take home more of what they earn.

Great play is being made of the £8 billion from Europe. The Government considers it free money. We saw all the pomp and ceremony at Dublin Castle yesterday. What is behind it? If, for example, we took that £8 billion off the national debt it would save us each year a minimum of £500 million. What could that do for employment? If we started with low income earners, if we removed PRSI from the first £3,000 of income, that would reduce employer costs by, on average, £7 a week and give the low income earner an extra £4 per week in his pocket, far more than he would get as a result of negotiations under the Programme for Economic and Social Progress. Would it not make sense to start reducing the cost of employment, thus giving people more disposable income? The average earner is not concerned about gross income. What he is concerned about is what he takes home at the end of the week. Many would be better off if they never went out to work. The way we have managed and run this country over many years is a terrible indictment. We cannot have a plan like this with all the confusion about whether it is from 1993 or 1994 to 1999.

The Taoiseach

It is the Deputy who is confused.

Miss Harney

The Taoiseach gets very touchy every time I say this but on page 7 it states 1993-99 and on the cover it states 1994-99. Let us make up our minds.

The Taoiseach

Ask Deputy Cox if he can reduce the national debt with the £8 billion. The suggestion is nonsense and Deputy Harney knows it.

Miss Harney

Let us make up our minds what the plan is for. The other day the Minister of State said that if we could become more competitive in the context of wage costs by even 1 per cent that would increase our job numbers of 4,000 per year. If we were to do that over the period of the plan, six or seven years, there would be an increase of, perhaps, 24,000 gross——

Ms E. Fitzgerald

It would be a net increase of 24,000.

Miss Harney

We would net between 10,000 and 16,000 extra jobs. What could be done under this plan? At the most 10,000 jobs per annum could be created and that is the best case scenario. Does it not make sense to go down the road of tax reform and changing the competitive anomalies that exist in our economy rather than down the road of the big spend? Of course there are things in the plan that will help our competitiveness. Our road network will be improved — I welcome that because it is long overdue — and hauliers and others will have easier access to markets.

Let us look at what is proposed for our ports. Why is so much business traffic going to Larne rather than to Irish ports? It is mainly because of the frequency of sailings and lower costs. How can we compete with Larne? Is it wise to invest scarce resources in the development of six ports? Could we not concentrate on two? The plan proposes to invest a small amount of money in six ports and, at the end of the day, we will end up in exactly the same position; Larne will still be more competitive, will still have more frequent sailings, and it will still be better for Irish business wishing to gain access to international markets to go out through Larne. It makes no sense to spread the money around like confetti.

This plan has much of the Santa Clause about it. Every Minister at the Cabinet Table had to get something, and it looks good. Thankfully it is long past the time when people were impressed by this kind of big spending. There are no votes to be gained from that kind of spending any more and people are becoming cynical about all politicians as a result of such spending. The Taoiseach should look again at the proposal relating to ports with a view to ensuring that goods can get to international markets quickly, efficiently and more cheaply from the Republic than they can from Larne.

In regard to working arrangements in this country I accept that even with tax reform, even with some of the proposals in this plan, we will not be able to provide jobs for the numbers currently unemployed and the 25,000 people coming on to the labour market each year to the end of the decade. What are the alternatives? I strongly believe in the concept of workfare, often labelled a right wing concept but a sensible one. In the course of my work as a public representative I see people losing self-esteem. They feel worthless. They are increasingly marginalised. However, they do not want the handout of the dole. They want to participate in the economy and make a worthwhile contribution to their community. The sooner the better we recognise that. We are breeding generation upon generation of unemployed people who are alienated not just from politics but from society at large, resulting in extra costs in our health services, strain on family life etc. Unfortunately the unemployed are concentrated mainly in our larger towns and cities such as Cork, Dublin and Limerick. It is not just that the people themselves and their families feel alienated; even neighbours feel choked. That is all down to our big spend, high taxation, borrowing mentality which festers in politics like cancer. Unless we fundamentally change not only the way we organise our economy but the way we think about the people who make up this country, we will have even more difficulties than the one I mentioned.

As the Leader of a smaller Opposition party I feel that this Dáil is being further marginalised each day by the Government, which holds the Dáil in total disrespect. What we have are set speeches, not debates. Most of the debate about politics goes on outside the House. We are not just marginalising the Dáil by allowing that to happen, we are damaging democracy. The best debates are taking place on the airwaves and in debating societies. Debates on the economy are organised by business organisations all around Ireland. I regret that very much.

I would say to the Taoiseach that I will offer on behalf of my party effective but constructive Opposition. I do not believe in the politics of Opposition for the sake of opposition. The Taoiseach will not find me wanting in giving support where I believe it is merited, particularly on Northern Ireland and many sensitive issues with which people have unfortunately played politics for too long. I do not intend engaging in that kind of politics. I want the Taoiseach in return to understand that he will have no blank cheques and that he cannot continue with this complacent attitude towards the Dáil. Many of the new Members who came in here in a blaze of glory last November are already deeply disillusioned with the way we do our business in Dáil Éireann.

The Taoiseach

What about the committee system?

Miss Harney

I am trying to be helpful. I accept that the committee system has improved matters, but there is much more room for improvement — for example, Ministers are not accountable to the committees. This Dáil must be the place where we have real debate, where we restore confidence and respectability to politics. That will not happen outside. But it will only happen if we show respect towards this institution. If we do not do so we will not only marginalise the Dáil and ourselves but we will do untold damage to democracy, we will further alienate people from the democratic process and we will play into the hands of those who want to damage this country not just economically but politically.

I regret we cannot vote on this plan or put forward any meaningful amendment to it. I wonder what is the point of this debate. I hope it is the last debate of this kind that takes place. Whether we are negotiating in relation to Northern Ireland or with the social partners, I want the Taoiseach and the Government in general to come in here to consult with and to seek the advice, help and views of the Opposition. That is much more important when a Government has a huge majority, as has this one, than when a Government has a majority of three or four. It has been my experience that a Government with a small majority is always more alert and accountable. A Government with such an unprecedented majority as has this Government is in real danger of alienating many people from politics and many people who were elected to Dáil Éireann to represent their constituents will believe it is worthless.

In spite of my reservations about the plan I wish it well. It is a fundamentally flawed plan. It is not aimed at improving business or jobs and it is not an economic plan. Therefore, it is a plan that will do greater damage to the economy. The Government should reconsider some of the central features of the plan. In particular, the Government must realise that until we reward incentive and enterprise we will not generate jobs. Until we realise that problems are not solved by throwing money at them we will not get the fundamentals right and we will not repair the house. The rot will spread and the whole building will eventually collapse.

Mr. Gilmore

I join the two previous speakers in regretting that we are not having a real debate on this plan. We are discussing a document that has been already submitted to the EC Commission. We cannot vote on it and we cannot change it. We can do nothing with it: it is already a fait accompli. The Taoiseach expressed some surprise that Members of the Opposition are critical of this plan. There is nothing left for the Opposition to do but critically examine this plan. In response to some of the comments from Deputy Harney the Taoiseach asked what about the committee system in relation to Dáil reform. What about the committee system? Why was this plan in its draft form not put before one of the committees for detailed examination in the last three or four months? That would have been a much more productive use of the time of the committees than the kind of Second Stage debates that are now taking place on virtually every amendment that comes before those committees on Committee Stage.

It is of course no accident that that procedure has not been followed. It was never intended by the Government that this plan be debated properly in the House. If we go back to the conception of this partnership Government, the £8 billion was the glimmer in the Taoiseach's eye that gave rise to this partnership. I recall very distinctly the position after the general election. When the Taoiseach attended the Edinburgh Summit it was accepted by people in general, including those in Fianna Fáil, that Fianna Fáil was destined for a period in Opposition. The £8 billion package emerged from the Edinburgh Summit and suddenly there was a new mood in Fianna Fáil, a mood that this was Fianna Fáil money, that there was £8 billion to spend and that Fianna Fáil would have its hand in spending it. Before you could say "partnership Government" there was a document in front of the Labour Party inviting them to participate in this arrangement. The £8 billion was the dowry that gave rise to this partnership Government. It is regrettable that the passive partners in Government, the Labour Party, is going along with this arrangement.

While we have a plan before us which is very laudable in terms of objectives and which is described in terms of operational programmes, beneath the text of the plan is the layer which really counts, that is, the individual projects. Who is going to get the £8 billion, just as who got the £3.5 billion of the last programme? Whose land is going to be bought for the road plans that are set out in this document? Who are already up the back stairs to this Government with their individual projects looking for funding, slipped in under the various operational programmes? What little schemes, dressed up perhaps in some cases as community schemes, are already being lined up strategically, with the involvement of Government people, to qualify for funding under these schemes? It was never intended that there would be a proper debate on this plan, because beneath all the nice language in the plan is the worst, old-style kind of Fianna Fáil patronage, a form of patronage that, regrettably, now seems to have the blessing of the passive partners in the partnership Government.

On 20 July last we were told that the £8 billion was finally in the bag, give or take a couple of bob. The National Development Plan published ten weeks later can only be described as an anticlimax, a tragic comedy which learns few lessons from the past and offers little hope for the future. The plan is perched atop the crumbling edifice of failed economic policies, a tax system in urgent need of reform, unemployment hovering around 300,000 and slavish adherence to EC monetary policies increasingly dictated by Bonn. This plan is not located in any global context: at a time of increasing economic interdependence it fails to take accounts of the issues raised by the Rio Earth Summit or the entire North-South construction and there is merely a token nod in the direction of GATT.

The National Development Plan supposedly represents total investment of £20 billion, a figure which, like past exploits, grows in the telling, as private investment and Exchequer expenditure are tacked on at either end. Whatever the real figure — we will only know that in 1999 — this level of capital investment cannot be treated as a political slush fund, a bigger and better version of the national lottery.

The formulation of this plan has been governed by under-the-counter government relieved by a series of inspired leaks. Despite repeated demands from Democratic Left, the Government refused to publish the plan until it was submitted to the Commission, thus effectively muzzling any meaningful input from the community of social partners.

As we head into the new Programme for Economic and Social Progress negotiations, the formulation of the National Development Plan has been marked by concealment rather than consensus. In June my party set out certain markers against which the plan should be measured. We pointed out that during the 1989-93 round of funding approximately 14 per cent of the working population and a mere 5 per cent of the total population got over 50 per cent of all EC funding. During the last round of funding we received the highest allocation on a per capita basis, yet we created fewer jobs and benefited fewer people than any of the other objective 1 regions.

It is especially interesting to note that the massive funds poured into agriculture during the last funding period did nothing to halt the haemorrhage of people from the land. This is not surprising considering that a mere 20 per cent of farmers received 80 per cent of funds. In fact, not only were agricultural jobs lost but net value-added per person employed in agriculture actually declined during the last funding period.

The National Development Plan's ultimate aim, in EC terms, is to increase GDP. Agriculture represents only 9 per cent of Irish GDP, yet when Common Agricultural Policy subsidies are added to Structural and Cohesion Funds spending in this sector will again be disproportionately funded, at the expense of local development projects and the development of indigenous industry.

After hearing the proposals for the current round, I see little reason to change that analysis. I was interested in the overall tone of the Taoiseach's speech today which seemed to be somewhat different to that used at the presentation of the plan in Dublin Castle earlier this week. The theme earlier in the week was that this plan would create 200,000 jobs; the theme of the Taoiseach's contribution today, particularly when one adds the one or two pages which were not in his original script, seemed to be that this was a plan which would be good for farmers.

In June, Democratic Left also emphasised the need for a "bottom-up" concept of development, formulated and implemented at every stage in concert with local communities. Despite the lip-service paid to partnership in the plan, there is little evidence of any real change. Certainly, the third sector has not been involved to any significant degree, and this is not for want of effort on their part. Numerous submissions were sent to the Government by a variety of small community groups who know the problems and want to be part of the solution. In many cases these submissions were ignored. Instead, all the input was channelled through the regional review subcommittees whose geographical ambit was so wide as to prohibit them from taking on board localised concerns. Those committees were established because it was found during the lifetime of the last plan that there was no adequate regional structure in place for consultation and monitoring of the plan.

I submit that social, economic and structural problems are different in various areas. For example, the problems in Dún Laoghaire are different to the problems in Tallaght or Arbour Hill and cannot simply be dealt with by a greater Dublin sub-regional review committee. I would argue that programmes impacting on local communities must be developed by those communities if we are to see any real benefit. Unfortunately, all we are getting from the Government is a kindergarten approach: administration by bureaucrats, through bureaucrats and for bureaucrats still seems to be the order of the day. The democratic deficit seems to be still in place so far as this plan is concerned.

The EC component of these funds is allocated in accordance with very clear and specific criteria and it will only be paid out if the EC is fully satisfied with our proposals for a National Development Plan, which is by no means certain.

Partnership, of course, is not merely a local but also a national and European concept. The EC Committee of the Regions was established under the Maastricht Treaty to ensure local input into all programmes impacting on the Community's regions. The Committee of the Regions will have an advisory role, will comprise representatives from regional and local bodies such as local authorities and will have a say in the allocation and supervision of funds and projects. The committee's influence on regional policy is potentially enormous.

It is amazing that up to last week the Government had failed to nominate Ireland's nine representatives to that committee. This could seriously impede the work of this committee, especially with regard to the Structural Funds and Community initiatives. I fear that the delay may be due to internal bickering within the Government as to which constituencies, parties and sectional interests are to be represented on the committee. No doubt favours are being called in and favours are being granted — a certain person got the Commission job, another person got the Court of Auditor's job and now certain people are to get the positions on the Committee of the Regions. For the first time through the Committee of the Regions the regions of Europe, especially peripheral countries such as Ireland, will have a real say in where the money goes. It would be scandalous if this chance to partly remedy the democratic deficit was sacrificed to petty internal squabbling.

We get these funds as an Objective 1 region on the grounds that our GDP is less than 75 per cent of the EC average. The funds are meant to bring us over that 75 per cent — that is the real meaning of cohesion. Unless the National Development Plan fulfils that criterion, it is worthless in EC terms. There is little or no evidence to show that the plan will either increase our GDP or fulfil any meaningful social objective. It is a plan meant to create jobs but which provides only schemes. It is a plan based on the Maastricht principles of cohesion and convergence but it does little to promote social cohesion or convergence between the haves and the have-nots in Ireland. This is a plan of notions — notional figures and notional projections; it is predicated on a constant growth rate of 3.4 per cent per annum from now until 1999; it is intended to create 200,000 jobs and it depends on substantial private investment.

I would welcome a detailed analysis of the growth rate projections and I would like to know what, if any, variables have been taken into account. With regard to the job projections, let us not forget that unemployment rose substantially during the lifetime of the last round of Structural Funds. It is estimated that by the end of this plan's lifetime we may have an unemployment level of approximately 400,000. The net employment gain is unlikely to be more than 70,000 jobs. This does not represent much of a return on an investment of £20 billion. After all, a rehash of past policies is likely to produce past results.

As I mentioned, this plan has been formulated in a global vacuum; yet job creation today is influenced not just by the decisions taken in Dublin but also by those taken in Brussels, New York and Tokyo. A clear-headed analysis of current and future international developments would have enabled us to develop a programme not merely of job creation but also of job maintenance, something which has been omitted from this plan. There has been no mention of how existing jobs can be maintained. This is a remarkable omission from the plan given that the Government concedes that the leakage from existing employment is likely to be in the order of 130,000 jobs over the lifetime of the plan. Yet current Government policies are working against job maintenance, thus negating much of what is positive in the plan.

The Government's intransigent stance on the GATT talks, its persistent tunnelvision which focuses on farm subsidies to the exclusion of the rest of the economy could cost us jobs in the long term. At this juncture I appeal to the Government to re-think that policy.

A successful conclusion of the current GATT round, and the ensuing tariff reductions, would boost our manufacturing industry and help halt the jobs haemorrhage. The reduction of tariffs on textiles, in particular, would give a much needed boost to an industry crippled by the Government's VAT hike. Yet, by blindly following the French down the agricultural cul-de-sac, the Government is prepared to sacrifice existing jobs to a sector which produces just 9 per cent of our GDP.

It is absurd that, either by active intervention or, as in the case of Digital, passive neglect, the Government is engaged in a programme of job reduction. This plan is supposed to create 200,000 jobs yet it is also acknowledged that 130,000 jobs will be lost in the economy over the lifetime of that plan. The Government has produced a plan which supposedly focuses on our infrastructure and peripherality problems yet at the same time it will decimate our national carrier. The Cahill rescue plan was an expensive act of vandalism: the costs of this rescue plan to Aer Lingus, the Exchequer and the north side of Dublin are as yet incalculable. All of these actions were followed by passivity.

It is remarkable that for the past few months British Midland and Ryanair have been virtually camped in Brussels lobbying the Commission and, in the case of British Midland, lodging an official complaint against Aer Lingus, yet it is only today that representatives of Aer Lingus as a company are preventing themselves in Brussels to argue the case for Aer Lingus. This raises a very simple question: why was Aer Lingus as a company not in Brussels matching the cases its competitors were making? I have been informed that there was an instruction to the management of Aer Lingus not to lobby independently the European Commission in relation to the plan. I cannot see any other explanation why, despite all the talk about the Commission's attitude to the Aer Lingus package and despite the fact that Aer Lingus's competitors were batting for their case, nobody presented from Aer Lingus. The first presentation was made by the company's trade unions last week.

There is much emphasis in this plan on the question of industry, but a fundamental weakness of the plan is its failure to comprehend the basic importance of the innovation process in national economic success. A recent report by the National Economic and Social Council identified the lack of a national system of innovation as the single most important cause of Ireland's relative lack of economic success compared to other small European economies such as Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and Switzerland.

Repeated surveys show Ireland coming out at the bottom of the world league table of national expenditure on research and development, an essential ingredient in the innovation process. The most successful countries are those which spend the most on research and development such as Japan and Germany. This is not surprising. Only 5 per cent of Irish manufacturing companies carry out any research and development. In fact, research and development spending by Irish firms declined by almost 10 per cent between 1988 and 1990. Successful economies increased their research and development spending during recessionary periods in order to enhance their technological and organisational ability to both survive recession and to be in a position to better exploit the next expansionary period.

The Culliton report says that technological competence is one of the main keys to competitive advantage. There is no evidence of any understanding of this basic fact in the National Development Plan. None of the 15 chapters is devoted to this topic. In fact, it does not even merit a subheading. Technological weakness is not included in the list of weaknesses of the economy which are spelled out in page 24. What is even more unfortunate is that where the plan does mention research and development it actually provides for a reduction in spending in both absolute and relative terms over the planned period. Thus in the chapter on industry spending on research and development is projected to decline from £61 million to £58 million between 1994 and 1997 and from 24.4 per cent of total public expenditure on industrial development in 1994 to 22.2 per cent in 1999. This is in line with the 20 per cent reduction in the national science and technology budget in 1993 and represents an unbelievably short-sighted and narrowminded view of the role of technological development in the economic development process.

Instead, the plan trots out the old notion that wage competitiveness is the only factor in international success. Unit wage costs in Irish industry have dropped by almost a half vis-à-vis our main competitors since 1980 with little impact on job creation here. In those industries in which wage costs are of a major significance we have no chance of competing with the low wage countries of the Third World. The only industries where we can hope to gain competitive advantage are those where the key ingredients of success are innovation in products, processes and organisational and marketing techniques. These require a substantial amount of ongoing investment, much of which will generate no return but some of which offers the potential of high returns. However, risky investment seems to be entirely foreign to both the business and political communities in Ireland. Ultimately, the aim of the Structural Funds, upon which the National Development Plan is based, is to tackle the structural weaknesses which are inhibiting economic development in Ireland. This plan signally fails to address a fundamental structural weakness in the Irish economy — or lack of innovation capacity. By failing to tackle this weakness head on, the plan is inevitably doomed to massive under achievement if not outright failure.

Emphasis has been put on the whole question of what are called local community initiatives and local community development. What we are witnessing here is a stroke of genius. The Government is in effect getting the European Community to pay our dole bill because the community employment development programmes, which have been referred to and which have been much lauded in this plan, are really no more than a souped up version of the social employment schemes which, in turn, are nothing more than a temporary excuse to tamper with the numbers of people on the live register. Indeed, despite the comments that have been made by the Minister of State, who claimed that Ireland does not want to be a low wage economy, these social employment schemes and community employment development programmes are contributing very significantly to making this a low wage economy. They are certainly no substitute for employment in the real sense. They cannot be offered as contributing to the growth of employment or any kind of sustainable employment in the country.

The local development programme refers also to the question of urban renewal for which £116 million has been set aside, of which £34 million is to be spent on the Temple Bar project alone. That leaves only £82 million for urban renewal in the vastly deprived inner city areas of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and many different areas around the country where there is a need for urban renewal. The Temple Bar project is a welcome one, but it will do little or nothing to combat the problems of unemployment, exclusion and urban decay for the majority of Dubliners. Long term jobs flowing from that project are as yet unquantified and it is unlikely to attract tourism of itself, although it may well be incorporated into some tourist itineraries.

We have to make a distinction between the "yuppification" of some areas of the inner cities and the kind of urban renewal which will give to the people who belong to those urban areas and whose communities are based there the right to keep their communities together, the right to decent housing and the right to investment in their communities. It does not appear to me that we will get that and I very much regret that the amount of money which is made available for urban renewal projects is so little when one removes the Temple Bar project from the equation.

The litmus test of this plan is whether it will create jobs. That, of course, has yet to be seen, but it is a plan which is the product of failed economic thinking. It is a plan which has already given us 300,000 people out of work. It is a plan which seems to be based on the same kind of presumptions on which the last plan was based. As I said at the outset, it is essentially a Fianna Fáil plan and I would like to ask the Labour Party, since so many of its Members are present to hear my contribution on this topic, where is the evidence in this plan of the Labour Party's economic thinking or the contribution that it has made to it?

This plan is essentially the same plan that we have been given before and it is based on the same ideas as the previous plan. In its publicity blurb it has been presented as a plan that will create large numbers of jobs. Yet on the Government's own acknowledgment the numbers of jobs it will create will be erode by a massive number of job losses. Further, given that the net number of jobs does not come anywhere near the number required even to keep us standing still, this is a plan which by 1999 will leave us with a greater number of people unemployed here than we have today. In my view, a plan, spending £20 billion, which sets out to make employment its central objective and which ends up leaving us with a greater number of people unemployed at the end rather than at the beginning is a failure.

Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Spring)

Deputy John Bruton in his contribution urged the Government to focus on early school leavers, on in-company training and on in-service training of teachers. I am very gad to be able to inform Deputy John Bruton that these are all well provided for in the plan itself. If he has any difficulty in finding them we will show him where they are. He reiterated the suggestion made by many people in recent days that the plan should tackle tax reform. I would have to say that Deputy John Bruton, as a former Minister for Finance, with some experience of imposing taxes, should know that tax changes are made in the context of the budget and not halfway through the year.

Mr. Carey

The Government could have been revolutionary.

Mr. Spring

There is time enough for that yet.

Apparently Deputy Harney wants us to pay off the national debt with the Structural and Cohesion Funds. I would suggest that she arrange a briefing with her Deputy Leader, Deputy Pat Cox, who, with his European experience, could explain that that is not possible and certainly could not be considered to be eligible under the regulations.

I can say to Deputy Gilmore that we will be able to supply him with any figures he wishes in relation to the growth rate forecasts. Indeed, it is very important that all Members of this House be supplied with the criteria on which this plan is based. As far as I am concerned, this plan has put everything up front——

Mr. Carey

Not at all.

Mr. Spring

——and there is no hiding of anything. Perhaps Deputy Carey would listen for a moment. We will gladly supply the figures for the growth forecasts in terms of job maintenance, in terms of marketing, in terms of in-company training. I would have to say to Deputy Gilmore, in relation to his comments on research and development, that he must not have read the plan.

Mr. Gilmore

I have, several times.

Mr. Spring

I think all Members of the House understand the importance of research and development——

Mr. Gilmore

Production.

Mr. Spring

The spending on research and development is very much highlighted in the plan, in the food area and others. If one looks throughout the plan one will see that there is a substantial increase in research and develoment. If we are to compete we must export our produce. We must manufacture, we must export, we must compete on research and development. Everybody in this House know that. If the Deputy looks through the plan in detail he will see it. I will be glad to supply all the figures. There is nothing to be hidden in relation to what this plan is based on.

There was the suggestion of more jobs. Of course, we could have sought greater job intensity initially — that could happen on a short term spend — but, quite frankly, I do not think that would solve our problems. What we are seeking are long term, sustainable jobs in a competitive economy.

The National Development Plan published on Monday was underpinned by a simple belief. That belief is reflected in many of the themes that run through the document and in many of the changes that the plan will bring about. That simple belief is best summed up this way. Working and co-operating with one another, there is no problem that we cannot solve. By tapping into the spirit and dynamism that exist in abundance in this country there is no challenge we cannot confront. By mobilising our traditional sense of community in the interests of one another, there are few heights we cannot reach.

The first line of the synopsis of the plan, as published on Monday, was "This Plan is about jobs". In reality, it is about us — us as a people willing to set aside differences, willing to take on mammoth tasks and to complete them, willing to put structures and attitudes in place that will benefit ours and future generations.

The National Development Plan can be seen as a list of eligible projects. It has to be that, of course — it has to be drawn up in compliance with the rules and regulations that define the purposes to which Structural and Cohesion Funds can be put. But it is much more than just a list of projects. It also sends a powerful message to communities, families and individuals who have been neglected and ignored through most, if not all, of the official plans that have been published in recent years. It is a message which says that there is no good reason for any community or family to be left at the margins of our society or of our economy.

Of course, the National Development Plan is not a panacea for all our problems. As the Taoiseach and indeed others have pointed out, it is not a full economic and social plan in the strict sense of the term. I think the description of the plan as the biggest single development project we have ever seen in the history of the State is a more accurate way of describing it.

I also believe very strongly that those who wish to denigrate or undersell this development project are doing no service to the imagination, drive, and inspiration of the whole Irish people. In fact, I think that those Opposition politicians who have been so critical are really only letting themselves down.

For example, Deputy O'Malley, the former leader of the Progressive Democrats, seemed to suggest that the plan was doomed to fail when he pointed out that unemployment had been at the top of the priority list of successive Governments and yet had grown relentlessly. The sharpest accusation he could make was that we were going to address the unemployment crisis "by throwing money at it". Yet the same Deputy O'Malley, when he resigned from office shortly before the last general election, had just completed a period of 1,200 days in charge of job creation policy in Ireland. He had also been in office during most of the period of implementation of the last development plan. When he took on that job in 1989, the number of unemployed in Ireland stood at 229,975; when he left, the number was 286.047. That is an average of 330 jobs for every week that the Progressive Democrats leader was in charge of policy. Perhaps we will be forgiven if we do not wish to follow that sort of track record.

For my part, let me put on the record of this House that I am proud of the way the two parties in Government worked together to produce this plan. It is balanced in terms of its regional impact; it is imaginative in terms of the many new ideas it contains, and it combines a strong sense of purpose with a strong inclusive motivation.

I said a moment ago that the plan is not a panacea. If it is to work it must be combined with action across a wide range of areas. High among these is the need for an agreed successor to the Programme for Economic and Social Progress. I have no doubt that the negotiations on a successor to that programme will be long and painstaking. What the whole of Ireland needs is a new programme which, as the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has consistently demanded, puts jobs first. That may well mean that those who are already in work, particularly those in secure long term employment, must be prepared to make sacrifices in the interests of ensuring that more and more people can find work to go to. If that is the case, then I hope and trust, that such a spirit of solidarity with those who are unemployed will be a feature of the forthcoming negotiations.

If the plan is to work in the long term we will need to accelerate delivery on the commitment to tax reform which is contained in the Programme for Government. That too will involve difficult choices, particularly as the requirement to reform taxation, and indeed to reduce the burden on lower-paid workers, must be balanced against the need to maintain, and in some cases develop, essential services.

This year we have made a very significant start in addressing the housing crisis, in reducing hospital waiting lists and in restoring class sizes in our schools towards a reasonable level, to give but three examples. That work too must go on. In some ways the work that the Government already has in hand will be accelerated and enhanced by the additional funding now available. In the areas of mental handicap, for instance, it will, I hope, be possible now to steadily increase the major efforts already being made to ensure that the rights of people with a mental handicap to training and work are fully met. Likewise, the opportunities to address the needs and rights of people with physical disabilities have never been greater.

In the National Development Plan as a whole, this Government is seeking to reflect the best in the Irish people. When we talk about mobilising the spirit of the Irish people, we mean it. When we talk about tapping into the dynamic of local communities, that is because we know it is there and because we know that that dynamic can make a major contribution to addressing the scourge of unemployment. In many areas the plan will contribute to that dynamic. I would like to say a few words about one element of the plan, with which the Department of the Taoiseach and the Office of the Tánaiste are closely associated.

The local development programe is a focused and dynamic approach which seeks to attack disadvantage and equality in our society. It is aimed at re-invigorating and enabling communities that have been on the margins for a variety of reasons. And where, as part of the vicious circle from which such communities suffer, long term unemployment and poverty are endemic features of life. Many of these communities share a number of characteristics. Long term unemployment is rampant; in many cases second generation unemployment is now a feature. Not only have many of the people who live in these communities little chance of securing employment in the wider economy but they have less and less chance of securing work in their own localities and almost none of setting up their own businesses. At the same time, their localities find it increasingly difficult to attract investment.

These problems are compounded in many cases by the fact that young people in marginalised communities are leaving school too early, and are being condemned in some cases to a lifetime of under achievement in economic, social and personal terms. The final part of the vicious circle condemns the communities, and the localities in which those communities live, to becoming increasingly run-down, both demoralised and demoralising. Anger and alienation, with increasing levels of crime, vandalism and despair, are too often the result.

Yet within many such communities there is a different spirit at work too. There are many groups and individuals who are determined to ensure that self-esteem is not a casualty of poverty, and that dignity does not disappear with unemployment. There is a growing spirit of enterprise in many troubled communities too — a determination to fight back against the neglect and discrimination from which too many people at the margins have suffered.

The local development programme is based on a recognition that all these problems exist — and that they cannot be solved simply by handing down prescriptions from on high. That is why the programme is based on the concept of enabling local communities — especially those who have been most disadvantaged in the past — to utilise the resources that will be put at their disposal for themselves.

In the local development programme, we aim to tap into the leadership and spirit of community and enterprise that we know exists. We aim too to draw on the successful experience of the partnership companies established under the Programme for Economic and Social Progress, and on the successful area-based initiatives pioneered under a number of the European Community's own programmes.

In each of the designated areas, local partnership companies will be established, consisting of social partner representatives at local level, community representatives from the voluntary sector and State agencies. Each partnership company will be charged with drawing up an action plan for the area, based on the essential needs of the local community, and using technical expertise supplied if required by a national partnership company. When area plans have been drawn up and evaluated, I envisage that funding will be made available for: an initial contact programme, providing counselling, personal development, job placement, enterprise development, and after-care; support for community development, including support for resource centres; preventative strategies, aimed especially at helping young people who are often most vulnerable; initiatives aimed at significantly improving the physical environment and infrastructure of each area; educational initiatives, to address particular local problems; support for other community initiatives, to be identified locally; core costs, including management and project work at local level.

In addition to availing of direct funding, we envisage that the local development programme will enable local communities to decide for themselves the kind of responses that they expect from State agencies.

If we are to provide the kind of services that local communities need, we must learn how to adapt to the needs they identify, rather than expecting communities and individuals to adapt to the services we offer, as has too often been the case in the past.

The area-based local development programme is only one of the responses necessary to deal with long term unemployment and poverty. It is important to remember that there are a number of different types of community where this sort of initiative will be needed. Major urban centres, medium-sized towns, and marginalised rural areas will be targeted.

Although this approach is only one of the many that are necessary, it is a genuine and radical effort to empower people and communities to come to grips with their own circumstances, and to enable the spirit and determination that we all know is there to rise to the challenge.

There will be many communities in Ireland, now struggling against the odds, that will derive great benefit from this new local programme, if it is given a chance to work. I believe that over time it will come to be seen as one of the most refreshing and important aspects of the entire plan.

I would hope that there will be many other areas of activity under the plan where partnership, at local and national level, will play a major part. When we in the Labour Party committed ourselves to this Government, we did so in the belief that a new and vigorous sense of partnership, with old enmities and rivalries set aside, had a lot to offer Ireland.

It may not always be as smooth as one would wish, but nothing worthwhile is ever achieved without struggle. I still believe that partnership — especially the partnership necessary if we are to consolidate a fair and growing economic future — is the only way forward.

In this context, I am particularly pleased that the plan is underpinned, in all of its elements, by the principle of co-operation with Northern Ireland. If partnership holds out hope for us in the Republic, how much more true is that of the island as a whole.

This Government is committed to seeking a new sense of partnership, not only between the communities that live on this island, not only between North and South, but also between us and our nearest neighbour, the United Kingdom.

It is important that I should say — to everyone who might be listening, but perhaps especially to the Unionist community of Northern Ireland — that partnership means nothing if it does not mean equality. The future will be a hollow and an empty one if anyone has to be coerced into it. In seeking peace and reconstruction throughout this island, we seek it for the benefit of all.

I do not know whether peace is on the horizon, or how distant that horizon might be. All I know is that this Government will seek any opportunity to bring peace about. There should be no misunderstanding about what we mean by peace. It means much more than the absence of violence. A cessation of violence, fundamentally important though that would be, would do no more than provide the environment within which we can talk to one another — all of us, Republican, Nationalist, Unionist, Loyalist — without the need to hurt or hate each other to prove our loyalty to a label.

Sustainable and long-lasting peace will come when we agree, not when we are coerced into agreement. It will come through dialogue and negotiation, conducted on equal terms and on the basis of equal respect. It will come through respecting each other's differences, and learning to accommodate them through political activity and through the principle of consent. And with peace, I hope, will come the chance of prosperity, for all the communities on this island, through both parts of the island respecting each other and working together. It is not something to be afraid of — rather is the hope of dialogue, negotiation, and agreement something worth paying a price for.

There are marginalised communities in both parts of this island. There is alienation, distrust, and violence in both parts of this island. But there are now opportunities to overcome that marginalisation — to bring peace and prosperity, self-esteem and equal esteem, wherever it exists.

We should see this plan, and the growing dialogue about peace, as linked by two things. They are both informed by a commitment to partnership and equality. They both represent very large opportunities in our political lifetimes. Now is the time to make the most of those opportunities.

Mr. Hogan

I wish to share my time with Deputy Avril Doyle.

Acting Chairman (Mr. Leonard)

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr. Hogan

The veil of secrecy that has surrounded the consultation process in relation to what is contained and what is not contained in the National Development Plan is unacceptable. While the Minister of State travelled around the countryside and met the sub-regional review groups and listened to what they had to say — the representatives of the local authorities, the various trade unions and business interests in the regions — this type of charade should not take place in the future because the National Development Plan has nothing more than aspirational intent and aspirational content.

It is difficult to understand how a Government with a large majority would have anything to fear in discussing in advance the submission to Brussels to draw down Structural Funds. It is disgraceful that the Oireachtas has been totally ignored in carrying out any analysis of priorities in a meaningful way. We had great difficulty in getting an analysis of the last plan, through the ESRI, discussed in this House. Only after constant requests to the Government — and some embarrassing moments for the Minister — were we in a position to get some contribution made in the House about how we fared in the last plan and how we could learn from the mistakes in drawing up this plan. There is evidence in the aspirations contained in previous planning documentations that it would be difficult to ensure that a greater number of people would be employed at the end of the plan period.

The Government has described the document launched this week as a national development plan. Nothing could be further from the truth. The plan for the Irish economy should involve much more than a list of public capital priorities to the economy during the next six years. One would have thought that the Government would have learned from the mistakes of the last round from 1989 to 1993 and that they would realise that throwing money at a particular problem in the economy would not necessary yield a return in terms of growth and employment.

Fine Gael firmly believes that the European Structural Funds should be used as a catalyst for the Irish economy. The barriers to growth and job creation should be removed by domestic policy in conjunction with this planning process. In typical Fianna Fáil-Labour fashion this plan, though aspirational about its likely impact on the economy, does not address the problem of competitiveness, reducing the overall cost structure of the economy in order to sustain permanent employment rather than just temporary training schemes.

The current round of EC Structural Funds provided a unique opportunity to link people with real power by ensuring that decision making with respect to the formulation of the plans and the dispersal of the funds could be concentrated at local level. In view of the fact that this is likely to be the last opportunity for Ireland to achieve significant transfers of finance through the Regional Fund, it is crucial that on this occasion we get it right and we learn from past mistakes.

Unfortunately, it appears that the present Government is committed to maintaining centralised control over the allocation and distribution of these funds and over the consultation process. Instead of offering real participation, the Government is proposing merely to consult with local people and voluntary organisations while leaving the final decisions to the Department of Finance. Instead of devolving real decision making power, the Government offers a confusing picture of boards, authorities and fora — none of which will be immediately accessible to local people. An initiative which could have provided a mechanism for drawing local communities into the European process in a real and meaningful way has served only to reinforce the concept of Europe as distant, impersonal and imposing — a Europe where power resides with bureaucrats and not people.

Local involvement and participation has been marginalised in favour of continued centralised control with cosmetic efforts made to consult with local people to see what their priorities are. The role of regional authorities in assessing the various demands for European funds should be spelled out. I feel that there should be competition generated between competing projects of a similar nature and quality in the region and between regions to avoid duplication and to ensure the viability of those projects.

It is ridiculous that various organisations in the regions have not received any indication of how they can become meaningfully involved in proposing and competing for financial assistance through this plan. The greatest failure of the Irish economy over the past decade has been its failure to translate economic growth into extra jobs. In spite of the various reports, such as Culliton and NESC, the Government has ignored radical tax reform as the prerequisite for employment. Change in domestic policy is vital in advance of the spending of large sums of money over the next number of years through this public capital programme.

The last national plan promised to create 175,000 new jobs, but the outcome was 80,000 jobs gross. Unfortunately, over the same period emigration rose by 98,000 and unemployment by 63,000. How can the public be expected to believe the Fianna Fáil-Labour Government when it projects in this latest plan that we will create an additional 200,000 new jobs? This "pie in the sky" projection does nothing to enhance the credibility of our political system and the standing of politicians. I firmly believe that we will not get any meaningful permanent increase in employment unless domestic policy is addressed in the manner that is urgently required.

I wish to welcome the Government's commitment in the plan to infrastructural development. It is essential to have access to our ports and airport if we are serious about improving the competitiveness of the Irish economy and reducing the costs of transport. However, in deference to my colleagues present from Wexford and Waterford, I must express bewilderment at the decision of the Government not to carry out major improvements on the Dublin-Waterford route via Kilkenny. It would appear from the plan that County Kilkenny has been virtually ignored for major capital expenditure in comparison to the scale of investment that will be carried out on the Dublin-Waterford route via Enniscorthy and on the Dublin-Cork route. It seems rather strange that the decision to improve the roads from the midlands to Waterford should take the route through Enniscorthy rather than the direct approach through Kilkenny. Perhaps it merely highlights the hidden political representations over the past few months from the midlands and the south east, of which I was not aware.

The Government has outlined a major commitment of resources to job creation and the food sector. This sector is seen as very important in meeting the job creation targets. However, no account has been taken of the impact of the present GATT negotiations, which will mean a reduction of 2.6 per cent of GNP, if implemented in their present form. This will wipe out in a significant way the projected increase of 3.5 pr cent in annualised rates of growth over the period of the plan that are set out in the Government's objectives.

This clearly signals the important contribution that agriculture makes to the Irish economy and the need for the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry and the Government to be vigilant in opposing the present proposals in relation to the GATT negotiations. This single sector alone, because of our economic dependence on agriculture, clearly indicates that the plan could go radically off the rails if the proposed downturn in agricultural output is allowed to be implemented in the context of the GATT negotiations.

I welcome the emphasis on human resources in the distribution of Structural Funds in the plan, particularly objectives in respect of early intervention in the education system to deal with the problem of early school leavers who have inadequate qualifications. However, I feel strongly that business and industry should be more involved in training and retraining programes rather than having FÁS act as an intermediary in the process. To avoid mistakes in respect of medium to long term investment there should be greater use of pilot schemes and equity participation by the State.

It is essential that in respect of all projects for Structural Funding there should be a clear statement of the objectives involved and the criteria by which success will be decided should be outlined. In the last round of Structural Funds the Government has thrown money at the problems of the Irish economy without analysing their impact. Consistently as a nation we have allowed billions of pounds to be squandered by inadequate analysis and evaluation. In particular there has not been any consideration given to the conflict between the allocations of funds from the European Community and the barriers of domestic policy towards meeting the desired objectives of job creation and economic growth. It is time we learned from our past mistakes and accepted the message that any real national plan for employment must give a clear indication of how tax and social welfare systems should be reformed.

Mrs. Doyle

The advantage of a ten minute speaking slot is that it cuts out the need for pleasantries and a rambling introduction. The plan before us is well presented even though there is a number of omissions that I will mention. The lack of numbering of the sections and subsections in each chapter is a serious drawback to cross-referencing and I would recommend it in any future publication. Sir, I am not sure that anybody is listening to me but may I point out that there is a reference on page 151 to an Appendix 5 — a map of the new regional boundaries. Certainly in my copy I have no Appendix 5, the last one being Appendix 4. Perhaps copies of Appendix 5 could be forwarded to Opposition Members because for some of us living in the sub-regions it might be interesting to know of any boundary changes in the regions.

In discussing the National Development Plan we must recognise that development necessary for enterprise and employment must and does create environmental impacts — sites must be built on, raw materials must be sourced, waste disposed of and infrastructure provided. These are unavoidable facts.

Just as extreme is the position of those who say that since you cannot have development without environmental impact, then jobs have priority over the environment. This argument is not sustainable as everyone's job directly or indirectly depends on the environment. If a factory pollutes the air then neighbours, farmers and business suffer, which means less money is available to be spent in the nearby towns, less revenue is available for collection in taxes, which in turn means less funds for social services and so on. We are interdependent. A sick environment rapidly leads to a sick economy.

In addition to its role as a resource for existing and new enterprises, the quality of our environment is also an important factor for attracting overseas investors considering locating in Ireland. We must recognise the need to preserve the quality of our environment, while supporting development and recognising that this results in environmental impacts. The National Development Plan apparently does not. In fact I contend that this plan fails to conform with Article 8.4 of the framework Regulation 2081/93, which specifies that the environmental dimension to regional development plans must include inter alia ...

... an environmental impact assessment of the plan, taking account of the principles of sustainable development and EC Environmental Law.

The environmental impact assessment provided in this plan is a travesty which fails to identify any adverse environmental impacts arising from proposals for tourism, local development, transport, energy, environmental services, in fact, from any sectoral investment. Each concentrates only on the positive and job creation prospects. If a developer submitted such an EIA to a planning authority it would be rejected out of hand as inadequate. In fact, on page 109 we are in effect told that no environmental impact assessment has taken place to date by the statement. It states that all projects which are likely to have significant environmental affects must by law be the subject of an environmental impact assessment. The plan earmarks the projects, provides the money, but who will break the news to the sub-regions and interested parties that everything proposed in the plan will depend on a favourable EIA? How can a project be deemed likely to have a significant environmental impact in advance of an environmental impact assessment?

In the same chapter we are told that transport investment proposed in this plan will have a positive environmental impact. This is not an environmental impact assessment or statement; it is further evidence of the plan contravening the Community regulation and our own law on environmental impact assessments, a major fault throughout.

I suggest that recognising the need for development and admitting that environmental impacts will result is the most important first step. For too long developers, including the Government, have denied responsibility for the environment and environmentalists have denied the need for development. Once this important hurdle is overcome, a complex process of negotiation takes place between our needs in society for development and the capacity of the environment to absorb that development. This plan should have acknowledged that different types of environments have different capacities to absorb different types of developments.

We must be realistic and honest enough to admit that Ireland is not a uniform blank page waiting to receive development which is distributed according to priorities and political patronage. For instance some rivers have a greater assimilative capacity to dissolve discharges than others, some landscapes, which are major tourism resources — such as the uplands — have a very low capacity to accept new development without adverse effects. The grasslands of north-east Cork are some of the finest dairy resources in Europe and any development which could damage this important national resource must be carefully considered.

In future we will have to grasp the nettle presented to us with the concept of sustainable development, namely, we must begin to recognise and accept natural limitations to development. This calls for a type of planning at national level, which has always been avoided until now for obvious political reasons. It is possible that the proposed new regional authorities could perform this role. This type of planning will introduce a spatial component and the need recognised in the plan to develop the competitive advantages of all sub-regions and to maximise regional development opportunities. Basically we are talking about concentrating development in areas of natural advantage and identifying development priorities in certain areas — tourism for some, agriculture, service or the pharmaceutical industry.

The benefits of such a policy would be many. Environmentally fragile areas would not be assigned potentially to damaging development. Sectors, such as tourism, agriculture and fisheries, which are dependent on the natural environment will be given priority over all other considerations in areas where these are, or have, a realistic prospect of being significant economic activities. Areas which are targeted to receive concentrations of potentially difficult developments will receive the human, technical and financial resources necessary to ensure that meaningful standards can be imposed and monitored and that where accidents occur, they can be competently and effectively contained and their effects mitigated. Scarce financial resources can be targeted into areas where planned sectoral growth will take place. There will be no need for costly, wasteful over-specification of every sewage plant, road or electricity supply in Ireland to accommodate development which might happen. If we understand this basic concept of recognising and accepting national limitations as a key to the creation of priorities for development then we understand the essence of this much abused term, sustainable development.

If a water body is too fragile to receive industrial discharge it should be made a priority amenity area. If agriculture predicates heavy industry in such an area, then we should concentrate infrastructural development on compatible activities such as tourism, the service sector and fabrication. If forestry provides a more realistic hope for economic activity in an area than massively subsidised agriculture, then let forestry have priority, providing forestry recognises that tourism, fisheries or agriculture have priorities in other areas.

It can never be a question of jobs or the environment. It is very much a case of jobs and the environment. In Ireland, the majority of jobs stem from the environment — agriculture, tourism, fisheries, forestry and horticulture. These industries alone account for more than 20 per cent of our employment and we should add to those the jobs indirectly dependent on the environment such as food processing, packaging, marketing, distribution, transportation for tourism, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and so on. Vets, accountants, solicitors and suppliers of energy, animal feed, farm equipment, construction materials and fishery equipment are all dependent on the environment. Furthermore, not only are those the majority of our jobs, but they are the best jobs we have. They are sustainable; they have been around for centuries and are still going strong. They repatriate all their profits into the community in which the money was earned.

The challenge to provide more jobs from new types of industries is to develop in such a way as to keep the best of what we have while embracing the best of what is new. The environment must be integrated into every level of Government and administration, into planning, evaluation and decision-making of every Department.

In the limited time available to me, I wish to point out briefly other areas of concern. The first two chapters in this plan are, in effect, an attempt to justify Programme for Economic and Social Progress Mark II and, as the plan is for six years, it risks being dated by this introduction. The section on urban renewal is weak and contains virtually no specifics. I venture to suggest that it was merely included, to pacify the European Commission. There is no mention of planning for investment in outer suburbs. The serious problems of those regions are recognised in justifying the Tallaght Hosptial investment, but there the interest stops. Thousands of people living at great social disadvantage in areas of high unemployment are being offered nothing by this plan in terms of capital investment. Urban renewal apparently equals inner city renewal which, in effect, reflects the Temple Bar development and nothing else.

Acting Chairman

The Deputy must conclude.

Mrs. Doyle

Transportation, including our roads, accounts for 12 per cent of this plan, or £2.5 billion. Not once in the chapters dealing with this area is sustainable mobility mentioned and that could be the single greateast flaw in the plan. Nowhere is the question asked as to how we can limit this haemorrhage of public resources on the provision of roads. How can we reduce the need for journeys? Similarily, the whole area of traffic management is given a low priority and is certainly secondary to the priority of this area.

Acting Chairman

I must ask the Deputy to conclude.

Mrs. Doyle

I would ask you, Sir, to have patience. We are ten minutes ahead of schedule and I am almost finished.

Acting Chairman

The Deputy is encroaching on the time allocated to another speaker.

Mrs. Doyle

We are ten minutes ahead of schedule and, therefore, I would ask you to bear with me I will conclude as quickly as possible.

I welcome the recognition at last that site selection is as important as environmental impact assessment in the area of heritage and I hope we can all look forward to a high degree of transparency, accountability and consultation on that vital matter. We should note the recent saga in respect of the interpretative centres in this respect.

Acting Chairman

I am calling the Minister for Finance; we must adhere to rules.

Minister for Finance (Mr. B. Ahern)

The Minister for the Environment will address the environmental impact assessment addressed by Deputy Doyle. I will arrange for Appendix V, which sets out the boundaries for the regional authorities, to be circulated to the Deputy.

Mrs. Doyle

What happened to it? Is there something in it that the Minister does not want us to see?

Mr. B. Ahern

No, the appendix is contained in a document published by the Minister for the Environment, but I will make it available to the Deputy.

Mrs. Doyle

It got lost in publication.

Mr. B. Ahern

The Taoiseach has already outlined the key objectives and development measures incorporated in the National Development Plan. Other Ministers will expand the measures in the sectors for which they have overall responsibility.

The strategy set out in the National Development Plan does not present a radical new departure in the conduct of macroeconomic policy. Rather the plan continues, builds on and improves those policies which have contributed most to recovery and growth in output and employment in the Irish economy in the recent past. The expenditure programme for the EC Structural and Cohesion Funds incorporated in the plan fit into and enhance the effectiveness of the board integrated and consistent medium-term strategy which the Government is pursuing.

The macroeconomic dimension of the plan must be evaluated within the context of Ireland's status and role in the development, integration and expansion of the European economy. The EC Structural and Cohesion Funds provide opportunities to consolidate the benefits gained by the Irish economy from the completion of the Single Market, the first Community support framework and the beginnings of the process of creating an economic and monetary union. It is essential, therefore, that we maintain our commitment to policies which will keep the Irish economy in conformity with the basic requirements for participation in building this new European economic order. Specifically this means continuing to adhere to the nominal convergence criteria contained in the Maastricht Treaty.

Again, the fiscal policy underpinning the plan is essentially a continuation of the central features of the strategy which has transformed the outlook for the public finances in recent years. Confidence in the Government's medium term budgetary strategy is grounded on the consistent achievement of budgetary objectives. This is again true this year. The Exchequer returns for the first three quarters of the year released last week are strongly supportive of the Exchequer borrowing requirement targeted in the budget and, indeed, offer a reasonable prospect that some contribution towards any potential equity injection in Aer Lingus can be secured. This would maintain our position among the top ranking budgetary performances across the European Community and would mean that Exchequer borrowing will remain within the range of 2 to 3 per cent of GNP that has now been maintained for five successive years.

This should not, however, lead to any sense of complacency. The overhang of national debt built up in previous years remains far too high. We must achieve continued progress in reducing the overall level of our national debt so as to free up resources for tax reform and other spending priorities. Even if we did not have the Maastricht budgetary convergence criteria, our national economic and social circumstances require the maintenance of firm control of the public finances so that there is a steady reduction in the national debt/GDP ratio. This is an overriding principle of the Programme for a Partnership Government 1993-1997 and is of course reflected in the National Development Plan. Strict adherence to the budgetary stance of recent years must therefore be maintained, and the Government has already commenced examination of the 1994 spending outlook with this commitment very firmly in mind.

In the last few years economic progress in Ireland has continued at quite a remarkable pace, considering the scale and duration of the international downturn. From 1990 to this year GDP growth here has averaged almost 5 per cent per year. In contrast EC annual average growth was less than 2 per cent; in the United States, it was only 0.5 per cent; and in the United Kingdom GDP actually declined by 0.75 per cent per annum. Perhaps it is not so well known that employment here has also held its own by international standards. In the last two years employment here has been broadly unchanged, while it has fallen by about 0.25 per cent a year in the EC and by about 0.5 per cent per year in the United States.

It is also worth noting that our above average economic growth was achieved without fuelling inflation or resorting to excessive public borrowing. Inflation here, at around 2.75 per cent since 1991, has consistently been below the EC average. Similarly, general Government borrowing, averaging around 2.25 per cent of GDP over the last four years, has been well below the EC average. The Irish economy has clearly shown its potential for rapid, non-inflationary, market-led, economic growth.

As the Taoiseach indicated, the international economic background is not favourable. A substantial and sustained international economic upswing seems to be as elusive as ever. Once again some of the international forecasting agencies have recently been revising downwards even the rather sombre forecasts they published in the summer. The latest indications are that among OECD countries growth this year is likely to be very modest, averaging only about 1 per cent. Many of our continental EC partners are still in recession and output in the EC as a whole is likely to fall by about 0.5 per cent this year. Nor can we look to much improvement next year. While there is likely to be a modest improvement in western Europe, the latest outlook for the international economy in 1994 is for another year of below average growth, with a further rise in unemployment in the OECD area.

However, one bright spot in an otherwise rather sombre international landscape is that a modest recovery appears to be underway in the United Kingdom after the longest and deepest recession there since the thirties. GDP growth in the UK may pick up to average around 2 per cent this year and 2.5 per cent next year. This is a welcome change from the fall in output which the UK has been experiencing in recent years. It will of course be good news for those Irish enterprises whose main export market is the UK and who have been having a lean time over the last few years, provided of course — and it is a very important proviso — that Irish exporters can remain competitive in the UK market. We should not forget that UK producers have made great progress in containing cost increases in recent years.

Our Budget Day forecast of 2.5 per cent GDP growth now seems likely to be at least achieved and may even be exceeded. While growth in continental Europe will be weaker than earlier expected, this is likely to be more than offset by stronger growth in the United Kingdom and by stronger public and private consumption here at home — the latter largely because of the speed with which interest rates came down in the first half of the year. Manufacturing output has also held up very well considering the scale of the international recession, rising by over 7 per cent year-on-year in the first half of this year.

The available information suggests that employment has also been holding up well this year. Payroll related revenue receipts for the first three quarters of the year are encouraging. Income tax receipts, excluding DIRT receipts, are up by 8.25 per cent. PRSI receipts are also well in line with budget expectations. All these indicators point to a modest increase in employment this year.

Inflation here also remains low by international standards. This year underlying inflation at around 2 per cent will again be among the lowest in the EC. The latest figures up to August show a year-on-year inflation rate of 1.4 per cent, one of the lowest rates in the last 30 years. The reduction in mortgage rates has obviously helped. But even excluding the impact of lower mortgage rates, the underlying inflation rate is only about 2 per cent.

Given the prospect of even a modest improvement in the international economy next year, the likelihood is that economic growth here will accelerate in 1994. Much will depend on the response of consumers and private sector investors to lower interest rates. If the savings rate falls even modestly next year, then growth in domestic demand could be fairly vigorous. At any rate, I am entirely confident that economic growth here next year will again be well ahead of the European Community average.

As we have seen, while we have made tremendous progress in recent years in getting the economy right, the one great problem of unemployment remains. At the end of September almost 290,000 people — over 21 per cent of the labour force — were registered as unemployed. We must take care that the size of the problem does not lead us to reject economic solutions or, worse still, to advocate approaches which would undermine our ability to expand employment in the future. Any such approaches would be ill-founded and would not succeed. The only valid response to unemployment is to take the actions necessary to ensure we create what is needed — more real, sustainable jobs than we have succeeded in creating hitherto. The critical requirement is that we display the collective determination to take the necessary steps, even though they may sometimes in the shorter term involve unpalatable choices.

Although unemployment is very high, the trend has been improving for almost a year: the live register at end-September last, when adjusted for seasonal variation, was only 1,000 higher than at end-November 1992. Because of this improvement, the budget-time live register forecast for 1993 was revised downwards by 9,000 last summer and even this revision is likely to prove to be too pessimistic.

The rise in unemployment over the past three years has been due to labour force growth and not to a fall in the total at work. Indeed, the total at work has remained stable over the past three years. This may not sound too impressive in the context of our unemployment rate but, paradoxically, it vindicates the wisdom of the economic policies which are being pursued by this Government. This becomes clear if we look back to the international recession of the early 1980s and contrast what happened to employment in Ireland then to what is happening now in another — even worse — international recession. Furthermore, trends in the employment situation in Ireland compared favourably with that in the EC.

There is no doubt that the benefits which the Irish economy has gained from the efficient use of the first phase of the enhanced EC Structural Funds in the context of an overall development strategy are evident in our economic performance since 1989. Looking to the medium term, the benefits of the first phase of the enhanced EC Structural Funds should continue to improve our growth prospects. Moreover, the general outlook for the Irish economy is fairly positive. The reductions in domestic interest rates will over time provide a significant boost to personal consumption and investment in the economy.

The overall outlook for the external economy over the medium term should improve. Assuming that the international economy picks up during 1994 and that it expands steadily over the medium term, the Irish economy would be likely to grow at an annual average rate of upwards of 3.5 per cent between 1994 and 1999 — more rapidly than the Community average. Inflation over the plan period should remain moderate with Ireland among the better performing EC countries in that respect.

Significantly stronger performance in the international economy and sustained improvement in competitiveness should lead to much higher growth. The Taoiseach has already referred in detail to our employment targets and to the importance of improved competitiveness if we are to expand non-agricultural employment in a way that will begin to make significant inroads into unemployment.

I am surprised by the comments of some commentators and Deputies who have criticised the National Development Plan for not containing detailed tax reform proposals. The plan is designed to set out the country's development priorities in the areas eligible for assistance from the EC Structural Funds. It concentrates in specific terms on expenditure and investment priorities. The plan is not intended to deal in detail with the broader areas of economic policy, fiscal policy, tax reform and such matters, important as these are.

Very significant progress has been made in recent years in the area of tax reform. The main thrust of the policy has been to broaden the tax base as a means of alleviating marginal tax rates. That has brought about major improvements in the income tax and corporation tax areas. Notwithstanding this general stance, the Government has been prepared to consider limited well-focused measures directed at employment. The 1993 budget and Finance Bill included a number of specfic measures aimed at encouraging and supporting enterprise and helping employment otherwise.

The Government is committed to continuing the process of tax reform as an important element in overall employment strategy. As pointed out in the plan, the Government's priorities in tax policy are set out in the Programme for a Partnership Government. The strategic objectives are, firstly, to alleviate the burden of tax on the lower paid and, secondly, to raise the threshold for progression to the top rate of tax, thus reducing the marginal rate at lower and middle incomes.

The phasing and implementation of the tax reform objectives will be subject to the overriding budgetary position. As mentioned in the plan, progress in the area of taxation will necessarily require maintaining the thrust towards base-broadening as specifically recognised in the Government's response to the Culliton report. There is no evidence, contrary to Deputy Bruton's assertion this morning, that the PRSI system in the US has caused a major difference in jobs growth.

The National Development Plan will form the basis for negotiations with the EC Commission which will culminate in agreement on the Community Support Framework for Ireland. The CSF will represent the Community's response to the plan and will set out the agreed development priorities, the forms of assistance and the indicative financing plan. Preliminary discussions have already taken place with the Commission. The negotiations are likely to take several months and it is expected that the CSF will be agreed around the end of this year or early in 1994.

The CSF will be implemented through a series of operational programmes which will set out in greater detail the development measures to be implemented in each sector. Draft operational programmes are being finalised and will be submitted to the Commission over the next couple of weeks. Negotiations on the programmes will proceed in parallel with those of the CSF. It is expected that the programmes will be approved along with or shortly after the CSF.

A significant part of the expenditure is Exchequer financed and so expenditure in areas such as roads, sanitary services, industry, agriculture, training and education will be provided for in the normal Estimates process and can go ahead from the beginning of the year, even if final agreement with the Commission has not been reached. A priority for the Irish authorities in the negotiations will be that appropriate transitional arrangements are put in place in the case of other expenditures to ensure that there is no disruption of development activity between the completion of the present CSF and programmes and the adoption of the new ones.

Deputy Harney queried the period covered by the plan. The total EC aid provided for in the plan amounts to just under £8 billion at £7,988 million in 1993 prices over the period 1993 to 1999. The structural funding package at Community level has been settled on the basis of this seven year period. The new Cohesion Fund, which is the first element of the enhanced structural funding package, has come onstream this year. The Cohesion Fund is being allocated on a project basis. The Structural Funds elements for 1993 are included in the current Community Support Framework. The Community initiatives and the Structural Funds for 1994 to 1999 will be covered by the new Community Support Framework and the new Community initiative programmes. The total EC aid figure also includes expected aid from the new EFTA Cohesion Fund.

It is not possible to give a precise breakdown of the EC aid between the various funds as the position in relation to Community initiatives has still to be finalised. Excluding the Community initiatives, it is estimated that approximately 39 per cent of the aid will come from the European Regional Development Fund, 28 per cent from the European Social Fund, 17 per cent from the European Agricultural Guidance Fund and the new financial instrument for fisheries guidance and 16 per cent from the Cohesion Fund. If one looks at the Structural Funds alone, the breakdown is approximately 46.5 per cent from the European Regional Development Fund, 33.5 per cent from the ESF and 20 per cent from the agriculture and fisheries guidance funds. This compares with approximately 43.8 per cent from the European Regional Development Fund, 38.5 per cent from the ESF and 17.7 per cent from the Agriculture Guidance Fund under the present Community Support Framework. Of course the breakdown between the various funds and the aid rates to be applied are issues to be negotiated with the EC Commission.

Under the Structural Fund regulations governing the operation of the funds, 9 per cent of the total Structural Funds will be applied to Community initiatives. The Community Support Framework will in effect respond to the priorities identified by the member state. On the other hand, in the case of the Community initiatives the Commission, having consulted with the member states and the European Parliament, identifies a number of priorities in respect of which the member states then put forward their proposals.

The Commission issued a consultative document on Community initiatives in July and is engaged on an extensive consultation process with member states and a wide range of other bodies. The Commission is proposing reducing the number of initiatives from 14 to five. The Government broadly supports the Commission's proposals. It is expected to be around the end of the year before the final package is settled.

Ireland can expect to receive over £500 million under Community initiatives. Matching public and private sector funding should bring total expenditure under Community initiatives programmes to about £800 million. A global allocation for this has been included in the plan. It is not possible at this stage to allocate this to specific measures. It is expected that Community initiative programmes in Ireland will include measures in the following broad areas. There will be a further cross-Border programme covering Northern Ireland and the six Border counties which will extend and expand on the current INTERREG programme. The Government will be seeking a maritime border programme with Britain focusing in particular on the development of ports and access to ports and there is likely to be a further rural development programme following on from Leader.

Under the heading of adjusting to industrial change there are likely to be measures related to assistance to small and medium sized enterprises to help them compete efficiently in the Single Market and initiatives in the areas of research and development.

In the human resources area the Government will be seeking continued support for groups benefiting under the present HORIZON, NOW and EUROFORM programmes. The Government will be putting particular emphasis on measures targeted on the employment needs of the handicapped in this context.

Co-operation with Northern Ireland in a Structural Funds context is not limited to the Community Initiative cross-Border programme. The importance of North/South cross-Border co-operation in tackling a range of economic and social issues is recognised not only in this National Development Plan but also in the North's Regional Development Plan. Both plans include a common agreed chapter setting out the extent of existing co-operation and the prospects for further such co-operation.

There is already a great deal of economic co-operation between North and South and steady progress in promoting cross-Border partnership has been made over the past decade. In the context of the last round of the Structural Funds, for example, substantial support has been given to schemes designed to upgrade transport links between the two parts of the island, such as the improvement of cross-Border roads and the commencement of work on a major upgrading of the Belfast to Dublin rail link. The joint Ireland/Northern Ireland INTERREG programme has provided a particularly valuable focus for supporting cross-Border projects in many sectors. Other EC initiatives such as STRIDE and STAR have successfully promoted scientific and technical collaboration in the academic community and industry, a specific example being the optic fibre link between Belfast and Dublin assisted under the STAR programme.

In preparing the development plans for the 1994-99 period both the British and Irish Governments have paid close attention to the opportunities for expanding economic collaboration in the context of the next round of assistance from the Structural Funds. In the implementation of both plans the closest liaison will be maintained in all relevant areas to ensure this eventuality.

The Government was determined to ensure that the development strategy adopted for the plan should promote balanced regional development. To this end the Government has taken fully into account the work of the seven sub-regional review committees which were established under the current Community Support Framework.

The Government has responded to the recommendations of the sub-regional review committees to the extent to which they are consistent with the overall national objective of maximising sustainable employment and growth and having regard to the limits on EC and national resources available. Full account has been taken of the recommendations of the review committees in drawing up the development strategy which underpins this plan and in allocating resources to various sectoral programmes through which the plan will be implemented.

The detailed recommendations and proposals contained in the submissions from the sub-regional review committees also constitute a valuable input to the drafting of the detailed operational programmes which will be submitted to the EC Commission for approval in conjunction with the plan.

As part of the arrangements for implementing the plan the Government intends to develop the sub-regional dimension of the monitoring arrangements, building on the experience gained under the current CSF. The Government has decided that the regional authorities will have responsibility for the functions currently discharged by the sub-regional review committees. For the purpose of discharging these functions, the committees which will assist the regional authorities in this regard will include representatives of local authorities, other public authorities, Government Departments, the social partner organisations currently represented on the sub-regional review committees, the EC Commission and the voluntary and community sector.

Resources under the plan are allocated to national sectoral programmes, not on a sub-regional basis. However, the plan includes an estimate of the likely breakdown of the expenditure by sub-region. Maintaining an appropriate regional balance was an important consideration for the Government in preparing the plan. Statements of proposed integrated developments in each sub-region are being prepared and will be made available publicly.

The Government attaches particular importance to the effective monitoring and evaluation of expenditure assisted by the Structural Funds. This is essential to ensure the best return from this commitment of Community and national resources. A considerable amount of work has been done in relation to evaluation during the present CSF. This will be developed further in consultation with the EC Commission.

An increased technical assistance budget of £8 million has been included at CSF level. This will cover, inter alia, operating costs of the regional authorities in respect of their functions related to the Structural Funds and costs related to monitoring and evaluation at CSF level. Additional resources will also be devoted to technical assistance at programme level.

Much work is done by Government Departments and State agencies in supplying information and publicity about EC-assisted programmes and measures but there is still room for improvement. It is important that project promoters have information about sources of funding. There are also occasional incidences of grant beneficiaries not being aware of the EC contribution to this funding. We will be discussing with the Commission ways of improving further the information and publicity arrangements.

I would like to conclude by acknowledging the input of all the organisations and individuals who made submissions in relation to the plan. The preparation of this plan followed a very extensive consultation process, probably the most comprehensive consultation ever undertaken in relation to a national programme here and the final plan well reflects the considerable work involved.

Mr. J. Higgins

I wish to share my time with Deputy Deenihan.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr. J. Higgins

Twenty billion pounds is a great deal of money. Whether, however, the investment plan for the spending of this money will live up to expectations is open to serious question. It has been variously described as our last chance, among other things. The Taoiseach was right when he asserted at the launch that this is the biggest development project in the history of the State. However, his claim that this is the formula which is going to transform Ireland is where the major doubt lies. It is not clear that we have got it right on this occasion. In the interest of accountability, in the interest of return for money and in the interest of getting it right, I hope the EC goes through this development plan line by line, objective by objective, programme by programme and does a thorough in-depth assessment in relation to whether this plan is capable of making the kind of economic breakthrough that will bridge the gap between this country and our partners in Europe. That is the purpose of the plan and unless it is genuinely seen to be purpose-built in that direction and to have a realistic chance of achieving this objective then the EC should reject it outright with strong recommendations in relation to where it falls down and where the emphasis should lie and send it back to source.

The newspaper headlines say an extra 100,000 people, or an extra 14,000 per annum, will be at work by the year 2000. The small print, however, is less optimistic and more cautious, pointing to the fact that the figure may be only half that or an extra 52,000 in total, or 9,000 per annum. All the options have been covered — we have the best and worst case scenarios. The fact is that the Government simply does not know. This is a blind act of faith.

Based on the 1989-93 experience we have lost a substantial number of jobs. The textile industry has been and is being decimated and no protective measures are being put in place. Thousands of farmers have been driven from the land. Despite all the rhetoric about small enterprises and the odd flickers of small enterprise success stories here and there the crush of commercial reality means that the small have been hoovered up by the large; small firms taken over by larger firms; small farms taken over by big farms; small shops gobbled up by supermarket chains while small schools are closing or merging with larger schools. Social exclusion has grown and grown.

All other plans have failed. Each failure was a tragedy in itself. The real tragedy is the failure to examine the reason for the failure, to see where we went wrong and to ensure that these mistakes are not repeated.

The Programme for National Recovery was launched with much the same rhetoric as this plan. Apart from its success as an instrument for obtaining a national wage agreement it failed to meet its social and economic objectives. We lost jobs and unemployment grew. While the previous National Development Plan, from 1989 to 1993, was launched with the same upbeat buzz words, extravagance and superlatives also failed. Again, we lost jobs and unemployment grew. The Programme for Economic and Social Progress failed miserably in relation to its much vaunted job creation proposals. Again, despite spending billions of pounds, no systematic analysis was carried out to discover where and how these plans failed to meet their core objectives.

Ireland has been one of the largest recipients of EC funds. Such inflows are extremely welcome and have been of great help to the economy but they have also disguised the fundamental weaknesses of the economy. What is not clear is whether large investment in public infrastructure, which this programme has gone for, improves economic performance. One study by a reputable source will show that investment in motorways and public utilities improves productivity which another generally reputable expert will seek to prove and can prove that such investment has no effect on productivity. There is direct benefit from such investment by way of short term jobs, in construction and interim services for example, but their role in providing permanent improvements to the economy's performance, in other words closing the gap between ourselves and other members states, is very much open to question. Does the spending of £28 million, for example, to knock five minutes off the road journey to Belfast increase productivity or produce real economic return? Is the spending of £75 million on the Dublin to Belfast railway line, good and laudable in itself, in order to knock nine minutes off the train time really productive and will it provide a long term tangible economic return?

I do not wish to be negative but I am extremely disappointed that we have gone down the same road or cul-de-sac. Ireland has devoted no effort to assessing the impact of EC funds to date. At Central Revew Committee level the social partners are extremely happy if the commitments made to their sectors are honoured. This covers their flank but this plan is based on assumptions and educated guesses, the same educated guesses that failed us in the past. There is no clear strategy, as Deputy Bruton said, to free up the economic arteries or to shake out our taxation and social welfare policy. There is no strategy which recognises the principle that it is far cheaper to save a job, either in industry or agriculture, than to create one and therefore no strategic thinking in relation to industry or sectors under threat and advance planning to head off the challenges and the threats to such jobs. The plan seems to be based on the perceived needs of different agencies, Ministers and Departments. Right through the summer we were treated to headline after headline about the competition between the different semi-State agencies, Ministers and Departments in relation to their success or otherwise in wresting from the plan their particular slice of the cake.

One of the major misconceptions about the plan, and one which was been fed by the global way in which billions of pounds have been bandied about in the debate taking place outside the House, is that there is major additional finance over and above what we have received from Europe. When examined, however, heading by heading, it is clear that what we are getting is topping up finance.

I welcome the £3 billion for human resources development, £1.5 billion of which is to go to education of which the EC is putting up £1 billion. It is extremely disappointing, however, that education does not merit a separate chapter in the plan. This arises from the fact that the EC does not have a separate education directorate to correspond with our Department of Education. When one examines the figures, however, the annual allocation will work out at £257 million over the next six years as against £220 million which we received for each of the past four years. The annual increase, therefore, is £37 million and this can be seen in context when one considers that it would do little more than build and equip one regional technical college to cater for 3,000 students.

I cannot accept the Minister for Education's contention that this programme will transform the nature and quality of Irish education; it cannot be sustained. The £220 million for vocational programmes such as Youthreach, VTOS, local community initiatives, etc. is welcome. One hopes that such selective plugging of gaps and such education rescue initiatives for those who have dropped out or who have not benefited from the existing system will be successful.

We are tackling education from the wrong end. Unless we adopt a "bottom up" approach, get it right initially and unless the foundation is put in place at primary level, we cannot build and benefit at either second or third level.

At primary level there are huge problems. Many of our school buildings are the most sub-standard in Europe and would not survive health authority inspection. Many schools lack equipment. Our level of investment per capita at primary level is one of the lowest in the OECD. We have the largest class sizes in the European Community. We have no school psychological service, apart from two small pilot projects. We have a skeleton home-school liaison service comprising 40 home-school liaison officers despite the fact that we have 3,200 primary schools. Due to overcrowding and too large classes, a lack of investment, a failure to see education as a fundamental plan of social policy and a major instrument in combating poverty, the fact that two-thirds of our schools have no remedial teachers or access to them and that the Department of Education runs away from problems like dyslexia by almost denying their existence, between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of the children in the country leave school with little if any literacy skills and are branded as education failures before they even get into their teens. This was a golden opportunity to put solid comprehensive foundations in place across the entire primary system. If this had been done we would not need the VTOS, Youthreach programmes, etc. which sap up millions of pounds in trying to rescue, down the road, those whom the primary system abandoned.

It is extraordinary that an EC funded plan should not contain any reference in its human resource and education section to EC languages. In terms of linguistic achievement we are at the very bottom of the European league. As a nation we have a major psychological problem in learning languages. Our performance in Irish proves that. I doubt if more than a dozen Deputies could contribute to a debate as Gaeilge. Likewise, our inability to speak continental languages is a major drawback. Apart from the psychological barrier, there is quite obviously something seriously wrong with the methodology employed for teaching languages. Every post-primary school, without exception, should be offering at least two continental languages. Every child learning a continental language up to leaving certificate should have the language taught by way of concentration on oral skills so that when he or she leaves secondary school they will have reasonable fluency and basic conversational skills. If we are to meet our economic objectives, it is vital that we give more resources to language training. Unfortunately this is not in the plan.

I was hoping for more in terms of education. I was hoping for specifics rather than the global headings under which the money has been designated. Again I wish to express my extreme disappointment that in terms of announcing flagships — and there have been many, including a light rail system, tunnels under the Liffey, a ring road around Dublin, initiatives to eliminate unemployment blackspots in parts of Dublin — not one flagship initiative has been announced for the third level sector. I refer particularly to the failure to make any provision for the long-promised regional technical colleges for Castlebar and Thurles.

If this plan is adopted in its entirety it will be in clear breach of cohesion policy because in endeavouring to close the gap between the richer and poorer nations we are widening the gap between the east and west of this country. The west has been excluded. There is not one investment project in it. If this plan is adopted in its present form the west will have been written off as nothing more than a national theme park.

Mr. Deenihan

As spokesperson for our party on tourism I wish to deal with that subject. The national plan is short on specifics in this area. The Taoiseach said that a gross investment figure of £580 million would be made in tourism over the period of the plan. However, the precise amount expected from Structural Funds is not indicated. The £580 million is further broken down between the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht and the Office of Public Works, the former receiving £139 million and the latter receiving £100 million. As a result £340 million will go to tourism which, when further broken down, includes £160 million for product development, £50 million for the proposed new conference centre in Dublin and £130 million for marketing. When the private and Exchequer contributions are taken into account, I estimate that there will be about £33 million for marketing over the six years from the Structural Funds. This is totally inadequate and falls far short of what Bord Fáilte, ITIC and the Irish Hotels Federation sought.

In the light of the challenges facing Bord Fáilte and individual operators, who have to compete with other countries for a market share in tourism, this £33 million is seen in context. It is a derisory sum and will make little contribution to the overall marketing drive from this country in the next six years. Bord Fáilte, ITIC and the Irish Hotels Federation repeatedly sought in the region of £50 million to £80 million over this period for marketing. The amount allocated for marketing under the last programme from 1989 to 1993 of £17 million had very little impact on the American market where our market share has fallen. That puts matters in perspective. Although the number visiting this country since 1987 has increased, our share of the world market has declined from 2 per cent in 1960 to .9 per cent now.

The importance of marketing Ireland overseas cannot be overstated. Since 1960 Ireland's share of the world market has declined from 2 per cent to approximately .9 per cent despite good performance in the last four or five years. Similarly, Ireland's share of the European mainland market declined from around 2.7 per cent in 1960 to approximately 1.4 per cent in 1992. This increased only marginally this year. Ireland's share of the US visitors to Europe declined from 6.5 per cent in 1987 to about 5.1 per cent in 1993. Indeed it is said — this has been accepted by the Minister responsible for tourism — that our share of the American market this year will be down by 7 or 8 per cent. In contrast, during the period 1981-90 Scotland attracted 20 per cent more North American tourists than Ireland. That demonstrates that Scotland, by spending more money on marketing in America, is gaining a bigger share of that market whereas our spend in the American market has declined considerably. To give another example, Ireland attracted 230,000 visitors from Germany in 1992 but this is only 1 per cent of the 22 million Germans who travel abroad for holidays every year. That indicates there is huge potential for Irish tourism in the German market. Again, we need to spend the money on marketing in Germany if we are to attract a greater share of that market.

I wish to refer to Britain, our main market. Britain, which accounts for 55 per cent of visitor numbers and 40 per cent of revenue for Ireland's tourism industry, is a vast market of 56 million people on our doorstep. Ireland has currently just 4 per cent of the British holiday market, equal to the share of Portugal, Italy and Cyprus. We should be capable of attracting a greater share of the British market. British people are changing from sun holidays to active, special interest holidays. In this area there is a need to spend more money.

I would make a plea to the Minister and the Minister of State to help the family run hotel. Under the last programme the only hotels eligible for aid were those with more than 40 rooms. I appeal that under this tranche of funding all family run hotels should be eligible for grants for the provision of leisure facilities, upgrading their premises and increasing their complement of beds.

There is a debate underway at present on the question of access. Access is the single most important obstacle to future development of tourism in Ireland because it is too expensive to get to this country. I see no reason why Structural Funds should not be used to grant aid ferry services as is the case on the Greek islands and in regard to ferries from Scotland to the Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands. I appeal to the Minister to consider this matter. If we are to increase revenue by £1 billion and increase the number of jobs in the tourist industry by 35,000 the marketing budget must be increased. There is not much point in having great products if we cannot sell them throughout America, Europe and worldwide.

Minister for Equality and Law Reform (Mr. Taylor)

Subject to the approval of the House I wish to share my time with the Minister of State, Deputy Joan Burton.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Is that satisfactory? Agreed.

Mr. Taylor

In its provisions on equality the National Development Plan breaks new ground in Irish public policy. It signals a determination by the Government that women's interests are to be taken into account at every level of decision making. This plan marks in a very important way the fact that the Government has taken equality in from the margins of public discourse and brought it to the centre of economic and political concern.

In the "Implementation" chapter the plan clearly states that:

In drawing up stuctural funds programmes, the relevant Departments and agencies will comply with the principle that there is to be no direct or indirect discrimination on grounds of gender and will actively promote equal opportunites for both genders.

The provisions of the plan of immediate relevance to women's equality relate to two issues: gender-proofing and child-care. The House will be familiar with the Government's commitment to gender-proofing, since one of the very first acts of this Government was to approve a memorandum from the Taoiseach amending the Cabinet procedure instructions so that the impact of any proposed decision on women would be assessed in memoranda for the Government.

In so far as gender proofing of the plan is concerned, this is a process which will be the responsibility of each individual Department in respect of its own programmes and initiatives. There will also be a centralised mechanism to monitor the ongoing process of gender-proofing and ensure that the Government's policy in this regard is complied with. Every person is entitled to equality and to equal rights before the law as well as equal opportunities for personal and economic development. Of course, no one individual is the same as another, but everybody in this country is entitled to equal respect and equal concern from the State. Any society based on that equal concern and respect will want to pay special attention to areas in national life where women are under-represented and to ensure that their voices are listened to in the national debate on public policy.

In recent years there has been a general recognition that policy initiatives proposed by Government need to be gender proofed. Gender proofing is intended to overcome potential incidences of indirect discrimination and to contribute towards an integrated equal opportunities policy. In the employment field, such discrimination is of course, illegal under the Employment Equality Act, 1977. It is my belief that without a gender proofing procedure it is possible that the orientation of various programmes to be undertaken under the National Development Plan would otherwise effectively exclude categories of persons who are among those most in need of assistance under the plan and would compound past failures to extend the benefits of economic progress equally to women.

Gender proofing is also consistent with EC policy on equal opportunities between men and women. A Council resolution of May 1991 on equal opportunities, emphasises the need for member states to integrate the objective of equal opportunities and equal treatment in the formulation and implementation of all areas of national policy. I should add that we in Ireland must report progress on this at the end of the action programme in 1995.

The second aspect of the plan which I particularly welcome is its provision on child care. Child care is one of the most important influences on the participation of women in the labour force. The plan states quite clearly that:

Appropriate proposals on child care will be put forward for support under both CSF Programmes and Community Initiatives, and will have regard to such relevant factors as the eligibility for support of dependent care as provided for in the new ESF regulation.

The National Development Plan offers an appropriate context in which to draw up a framework for national child care development policy. There is a significant loss to the economy when women are prevented from working by the non-availability of affordable child care There are also employment aspects to the issue such as the employment potential of child care provision as a fast growing sector.

The drawing up of a national child care policy is very much in line with our domestic policy commitments. A detailed case for child care provision was put forward most recently in the January 1993 Report of the Second Commission on the Status of Women. The Programme for a Partnership Government also undertakes to create a major expansion in child care facilities. In addition, the Programme for Economic and Social Progress contained commitments to pursue the provision of child care services for working parents and to implement the Child Care Act, 1991, on a phased basis. EC policy also supports the introduction of a national child care programme. The 1992 EC Recommendation on Child Care requires us to take and to encourage initiatives to enable men and women to reconcile the occupational family and upbringing responsibilities arising from the care of children.

In Ireland, as elsewhere, child care comes in diverse forms: centre based child care such as nurseries, creches or day care centres and home based care where children, usually in relatively small numbers, are cared for in a private home, whether in the child's own home or in the carer's home. National child care development policy will take into account the variety of types of child care in existence and build on these, centred all the time on the actual needs and requirements of women.

I have taken action to ensure that the long-awaited report of the Working Party on Child Care Services will be completed shortly and I expect to have the recommendations of the working party on my desk within a matter of weeks. I know that this document will serve as an extremely useful input into our future policy-making in this area.

If real progress is to be made in achieving an adequate level of quality-based child care in this country it is essential that the issue be dealt with as a coherent whole rather than in a piecemeal way. Child care is an issue which involves women's equality as well as aspects of health, education and employment policy. Because of the multi-faceted nature of the issue it is important that it be addressed in a co-ordinated way. I see the challenge of establishing adequate child care facilities for all our citizens as a requisite for the achievement of true equality of opportunity in Ireland.

An equal society will enrich the perspectives and experience of every member of the community. An equal society is one where every citizen enjoys the benefits of full participation. It is one where new and exciting possibilities for action in our public life will flourish. The participation of every member of the community in public life is to the benefit of all.

This is the first Government to bring the issues of equality and discrimination in from the margins and put them into the mainstream of Irish life. By giving equality issues a prominent place in the Programme for a Partnership Government, and now in the National Development Plan, we are at long last giving reality to the rhetoric of equality of women and men.

Minister of State at the Department of Social Welfare (Ms Burton)

As Minister of State at the Department of Social Welfare, dealing with issues such as poverty and the integration of tax and social welfare, I welcome this plan as a critical element in the Government's strategy to combat poverty and social exclusion. When it is successfully implemented the National Development Plan will be the basis for the empowerment of disadvantaged and marginalised communities. The plan marks an end to simple trickle-down policies which characterised much of the last plan.

The National Development Plan is a plan for employment. Its central objective is to ensure the best long term return for the economy by increasing output, economic potential and long term jobs. It is further designed to reintegrate the long term unemployed and those at high risk of becoming so into the economic mainstream.

These three sentences from the introduction capture the essence of what is involved in the plan. The first two sentences state in a relatively traditional way our intention of generating faster growth: these sentences might have come from any previous national economic plan. At this level what is significant about the National Development Plan is its massive size and scope. It is the biggest investment programme ever undertaken in Ireland and as such can be expected to have a major and positive impact.

The truly radical and unprecedented aspect of the plan is signalled in the third sentence, which makes the task of tackling the cancer of long term unemployment a central goal of the plan. Throughout the plan, in particular in Chapter 7 which deals with local development and Chapter 8 which deals with human resources, there are measures specifically designed to address the forces which have consigned too many of our citizens to long term unemployment. There is a recognition that without a particular focus on these factors there is a danger that the growth which will undoubtedly flow from this plan will bypass many of our citizens.

This marks an historic shift of emphasis in dealing with disadvantage. Up until now most programmes dealing with community development and unemployment blackspots have been of a pilot and experimental nature. This plan brings poverty and unemployment to centre stage, making their elimination a cornerstone of the Government's strategic policy. Moreover, this is to be achieved not by Central Government diktat but by co-opting local communities into an exciting process of local development, co-opting not just the men of Ireland but the women of Ireland, who have created, quietly and confidently, a new community framework for growth and development.

This plan is not about tax and social welfare systems or their integration. Rather it is about employment and investment in our people and our assets. The Opposition's criticism of the plan for its failure to deal with these issues simply reveals their lack of ideas for investment. The integration of tax and social welfare is extremely important and is being dealt with by me on behalf of the Government. Today we are dealing with a different and equally important issue and I ask the Opposition parties to give us their ideas on that issue. The Opposition parties seem to have very few ideas and they constantly sidetrack into different areas.

I wish to make one important point about the programme as a whole. As I said, this is the largest programme of investment in economic infrastructure ever undertaken in the history of the State. This means that, as far as Irish business is concerned, many of the deficiencies which were identified by the Culliton report, and which have been the subject of complaint from employer organisations over the years, will be transformed. I am referring to investment in our transport networks, energy supplies and postal and telecommunications links where business will be the principal and direct beneficiary. We are embarking on this programme at a time when the country's economic indicators are favourable to business.

Our interest and inflation rates are historically low and we are committed to low Exchequer borrowing. An unprecedented investment in training and education is underway which will enhance the quality of skills in the workforce. The Government has put its weight behind the negotiation of another pay agreement which would be favourable to business. Other issues of concern to business — for example issues surrounding poverty and employment traps which can affect the supply of labour and the possible introduction of lower rates of employers' PRSI contributions for certain sectors — are under consideration.

The Government is doing its part to create a benign climate in which Irish business can grow and it has a reasonable expectation that this will lead to an increase in employment. It is vital to the success of the National Development Plan that employers respond and grasp the opportunity which this plan gives them. Anyone conscious of the previous performance of Irish business, as recounted in the Culliton report or by Senator Professor Joe Lee, must have some anxiety that the required response may once again not be forthcoming.

The Taoiseach was surely correct in this House on Tuesday when he stated that the excuse of PRSI being too high was no longer acceptable as an explanation for poor business performance. The publication of the National Development Plan means that several other convenient excuses — the roads, the phones, etc. — can also be buried once and for all. The banking sector also has a role to play. Even though it is a silent partner in much of this country's development, it is critical that our banking system supplies funds to indigenous industry and services on reasonable terms and conditions.

Turning to the aspects of most direct concern to me, a radical new feature of the plan is the extent to which resources will be committed to local disadvantaged communities to empower them to play an equal part alongside statutory agencies and the social partners in the social and economic development of their areas. I am saying to people in Ballymun, Clondalkin and Tallaght, in Westside in Galway and in Knocknaheny: this is your plan too. You will not be left behind again while the rest of society enjoys the good life and an ever-increasing standard of living.

The local development programme will build on the community development programme, which my Department introduced in 1990, the EC Poverty 3 Programme, which has been the source of much useful learning and experimentation on how best to tackle social exclusion, and the Programme for Economic and Social Progress area-based companies which brought together much of that learning and experience in a new local partnership structure to harness the energy and commitment of all the partners in our society in a concerted and targeted response to long term unemployment.

The plan is a carefully thought-out and coherent response to joblessness. Poverty and joblessness go hand in hand. Joblessness leads to poverty and social exclusion from rewards such as status, opportunities for self-fulfilment and self-development, social contacts and networks. Job creation and protection of existing jobs must remain at the forefront of our efforts. This is a primary objective of the plan. We must also concern ourselves with ensuring that those on the margins of society are given a fair opportunity to benefit from mainstream economic development.

Debate adjourned.