I call on the Deputies who tabled questions to the Minister for the Environment and Local Government in the order in which they submitted their questions to my office.
Private Notice Questions. - National Spatial Strategy.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle
asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government the reason Drogheda has been excluded from the national spatial strategy in the list of gateway and hub towns as announced by the Government on 28 November 2002.
asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government to make a statement on the publication of the national spatial strategy to outline the Government's proposals for the implementation of the strategy and what plans there are for consultation with communities likely to be affected by the proposals in the strategy.
asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government if he will make a statement on today's publication of the national spatial strategy which is of national importance as it impacts on every city, town and parish in the country.
asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government how the national spatial strategy can be implemented given the cuts in infrastructural development already imposed and those signalled for the future and how the strategy will operate on an all-Ireland basis.
I propose to take all the questions together.
The national spatial strategy was published earlier today and a copy was sent to each Member of the Oireachtas.
The strategy is a 20 year planning framework designed to enable every part of the country to grow and develop to its potential. It recognises that various regions of the country have different roles and aims to organise and co-ordinate these roles in a complementary way. The strategy's objective is to allow regions to become more competitive in terms of investment and job opportunities, while ensuring a high quality urban environment as well as vibrant rural areas.
The strategy aims to build up the strengths of different areas in order to achieve more balanced regional development and population growth. It recognises that a greater share of economic activity must take place outside the greater Dublin area. To achieve this, the strategy sets out a framework within which gateways, hubs and other urban and rural areas will act together to allow areas to grow.
In completing the strategy my Department has had the benefit of an extensive public consultation process and has sought to take account of the spatial aspects of a wide range of economic, social and environmental policies in collaboration with other Departments, agencies and bodies primarily responsible for these policies.
The priority now is to ensure effective implementation of the strategy. In the coming weeks I intend visiting each region to communicate and discuss with a wide cross section of public representatives and interest groups the implications of the strategy for that region. Regional planning guidelines under the Planning and Development Act, 2000, will be a key step in implementing the strategy. Extensive public consultation in the preparation of such guidelines is a requirement under the Act. Similarly, as city and county development plans are reviewed to take account of the spatial strategy, the enhanced process of public consultation in relation to the preparation of development plans provided for under the Act will apply.
On the issue of investment in infrastructure, such investment must take account of prevailing macro-economic and budgetary conditions. The national spatial strategy is a 20 year planning framework and is robust enough to deal with the various economic cycles which will occur over that period.
The strategy sets out a number of measures intended to enhance cross-Border co-operation in the spatial aspect of a range of economic issues. Co-operative arrangements to promote implementation of the national spatial strategy and the regional development strategy for Northern Ireland will be advanced.
County and other large towns, such as Drogheda, will have a vital role to play in achieving balanced regional development. They will provide bases for investment, economic activity and growth. Drogheda has considerable potential given its scale, its established enterprise base, its strategic position on the Dublin-Belfast corridor and its communications and business links with the greater Dublin area. I am satisfied that the national spatial strategy provides for the optimum number of gateways and hubs which will function to connect with and energise other urban areas to achieve more balanced regional development across the country.
Will the Minister comment on his Department's press release today which states that Drogheda is a primary development centre in the greater Dublin area, as well as being important for County Louth and the east of County Meath? Will the Minister tell me where Drogheda is mentioned in the planning guidelines for the greater Dublin area, as I do not think it is mentioned? Does the Minister agree it is a disgrace that Drogheda is ignored in the plan, especially given that it is the largest town in County Louth, it is bigger than Dundalk, it has a population of over 30,000 and it plans to grow to over 70,000 people? It is a disgrace that the strategic Government plan for hubs and gateways does not mention investment in such a vibrant and economically important town. Drogheda has been ignored by being left off the list. Will the Minister comment on the fact that the motorway link between Drogheda and Drogheda Port, which will cost €22 million, has not received funding from the Department of the Environment and Local Government? The road is essential to the development of Drogheda. Does the Minister agree he ought to resign?
I am disappointed by Deputy O'Dowd's response to the national spatial strategy, especially as the general response in the county he represents has been positive.
The Minister should go to Drogheda as the people there are very angry.
While Drogheda Chamber of Commerce expressed some disappointment that Drogheda was not specifically recognised as other towns were, it welcomed the overall benefit to the town.
The Minister had a selected audience.
The chamber of commerce welcomed Dundalk's gateway status.
Why were we not invited?
The Deputy either wants to elicit information or he wants to grandstand.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle
Time is very limited.
As I have said, publication of the report means that all local and regional authorities must take account of it when making planning decisions. Drogheda is shown on the map that demonstrates where SPGs will be located and Deputy O'Dowd can look it up if he wants. The strategy has just been published and the problem with some people is—
On a point of information, what is an SPG?
The Deputy should allow me to finish. I understand that people cannot be expected to grasp all the detail of the strategy as it has just been published. Drogheda was not included in Fine Gael's plans for building the nation, which is a statement of consistency with the Government's point of view. It is equally important to point out that the four new national gateways, which will be developed in addition to the five existing gateways, are in the BMW region, as are seven of the new hubs. I have listened in this House for many years to the argument that we need to encourage growth in the west, the midlands and along the Border. When Deputies, councillors and the public have studied the report in detail they will see that every area is included. Drogheda is located in a strategic position and we could not move it tomorrow if we wanted to.
Will the Government invest in the town?
It is positioned along main arteries and motorways. The strategy will not have a negative impact on Drogheda.
Why not join it to Dundalk?
We have decided, at last, to put a spatial framework in place so we can avoid over-development similar to that which is happening at present in Dublin. The strategy will give certainty to investment, infrastructure, Departments, semi-State companies and bodies, including State bodies, in terms of how we will get critical mass and growth in other areas of the country. It has been widely welcomed.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle
I ask Deputies to ensure that their supplementary questions are brief.
Will the Minister confirm to the House that legislation will be required to implement the strategy, as he stated in a television interview at lunchtime? Will he say what the legislation will be? I remind the Minister of a previous interview he gave in which he stated that one of the purposes of the strategy will be to retard the growth of Dublin and I recall the statements he made, including one in his reply today, about balanced regional development. When one looks at the small print of the document, however, one sees that a different policy is being pursued.
This document provides not for balanced regional development but for the continued growth of the greater Dublin area, which will include the counties of Wicklow, Kildare, Meath and south Louth. The strategy projects that the population of the greater Dublin area will grow to about two million people by 2020 and that almost 50% of the State's population will live in Dublin by that date, compared to 40% now. Despite all the ballyhoo about regional development, the most that can be said about this document is that it does not do what it says it does. Does the Minister agree that a core element of the strategy is not regional development, but the continued growth, development and consolidation of the greater Dublin area.
I welcome a great deal of the Deputy's remarks and I am delighted to respond to him. I said earlier that I am considering the introduction of legislation to underpin the spatial strategy. Certain aspects of the strategy, such as the part dealing with regional authorities which have a strong function in the plan, will have to be established with a legislative base if they are to work properly. I am looking at other issues in that context and it would be wise to consider them fully. It is interesting that certain important powers that were provided for in the Planning and Development Act, 2000, in advance of the publication of the spatial strategy, have not yet been used. They will almost certainly come into effect now in terms of the guidelines for planning authorities' development plans.
Deputy Gilmore is right to suggest that it would have been foolhardy and ridiculous to produce a report suggesting that one could suddenly stop Dublin from growing, as the reality is that it will continue to grow. The over-development that has been prevalent in Dublin in the past ten years will continue if we do nothing. The strategy recognises that Dublin, just like the capital city of any major country worth its salt, is the centre of international focus. The strategy will slow the growth of Dublin, but it recognises realistically that it cannot be stopped. The plan projects growth of between a minimum of 500,000 and a maximum of one million in Dublin's population. I suspect that the final growth figure will be somewhere between the two. The strategy is robust enough to take account of the fact that growth may even exceed the maximum figure.
On that basis, it is important that we develop engines in different parts of the country. People will take a subjective view of whether they are happy or unhappy with the plan for their area, but the reality is that we have to select for development areas that have a critical mass. Local authorities, chambers of commerce, the business community and the social partners have worked on this plan for three years. The arguments we have heard echo those made in Denmark and the Netherlands when plans were produced in those countries. The national spatial strategy has a 20 year timeframe – I would not pretend that it is for next year or the next five years.
A greater proportion of the people of Ireland will be living in the greater Dublin area at the end of the 20 year timeframe mentioned by the Minister.
That is inevitable, as we said today. Anyone with a knowledge of planning will acknowledge that this strategy sets out to limit and slow the growth of Dublin.
It will accelerate the development.
It would be foolhardy and unrealistic, when producing a report like this, to pretend that the growth of Dublin can be stopped suddenly. I have heard public remarks to the effect that this document is rooted in reality.
An invitation to the launch of the spatial strategy would have been nice as it is difficult for Deputies, particularly those of us on the Joint Committee on Environment and Local Government, to gatecrash parties. How can the Minister reconcile this strategy with our climate change strategy? I do not see within this document any serious attempt to tackle climate change. Two thirds of transport funding is going on roads – there is no change there. If anything there seems to be a downgrading of the importance of rail. There is no rail link proposed to link the Border, midlands and western regions. It is business as usual for the Minister's transport plan. There is no proposal to provide a rail link through the west from Derry through Galway and Limerick to Cork. If the Minister is seriously concerned about improving the BMW region he should consider a rail route there. The Minister is simply compounding the existing problems.
The Minister mentions climate change in the document, on page 59, but he talks about minimising increases in carbon dioxide emissions. That does not comply with protocol. The Minister is storing up problems for the future by using a roads-based strategy to link these regions. I am disappointed with the strategy. It is a genuine attempt to move forward but it is a roads-based strategy which is unsuitable for the 21st century.
In the Deputy's opening remarks he confirmed every reason we need a spatial strategy. The point is that this is a framework. Given that we have a spatial strategy in place, all Departments, semi-State bodies, public sector organisations and local authorities and all involved in the planning process will have to take account of it. The problem used to be that decisions were made by Departments or by companies in isolation because there was no framework. People asked where we were going and the result was massive over-development in Dublin. This is not a transport policy on behalf of anyone. For Iarnród Éireann, Bus Éireann, private sector bus companies or whoever is involved in the delivery of transport, it sets out with absolute clarity a method of ensuring sustainable development. Transport may be by bus or by train but now it must be based on the developments in the framework set down in the spatial strategy.
The Deputies must bear in mind that this is a framework for 20 years. It is for a generation. It is not for next week or next year or even ten years' time. From now on policies will be based on it. In the future it will directly form part of the review of the national development plan to ensure that the NDP is in keeping with what the spatial strategy sets out.
As Minister for the Environment and Local Government, I have direct responsibility for climate change. The policies of which the Deputies and I spoke earlier do not go away because there is a spatial strategy. Instead, the strategy is a drive for sustainable development. It is about stopping the overgrowth of Dublin and ensuring that communities and quality of life issues are at the heart of things.
I welcome the publication of the strategy. I support its emphasis on balanced regional development, given that I represent an area that has known only imbalance due to the concentration of resources in the south and east over many decades. The proposed hub towns include Cavan and Monaghan in my own constituency. I heard the Taoiseach stating this morning that the strategy was not an investment plan in itself. However, I must ask the Minister what investments and improvements can be expected by those in hub and gateway towns? We want to be able to spell out for people that this is not just aspiration, but something that can really be delivered.
Cavan and Monaghan, located on the N3 and the N2, have both been awaiting bypasses for a long time. After the announcement of the Estimates we were fearful that projects that had been proposed had now been set further back. Will the publication of the national spatial strategy address the importance of fast-tracking developments that have already been discussed for towns with gateway and hub status? Can Cavan and Monaghan look forward to the realisation of the proposals to bypass both towns in order to facilitate not only the indigenous community, but also the considerable North-South traffic that passes through both? Will it arrest the loss of critical services?
I heard one of my colleagues speak this morning of a hub town without a hospital and he was right. We have been facing in recent years the loss of essential services – hospital services at Monaghan General Hospital, swimming facilities – there is now no municipal swimming pool in the whole of County Monaghan. Is it not the case that this strategy will prove unworkable if the Government proceeds with the cuts outlined in last week's Book of Estimates?
The strategy will prove unworkable if everybody does not adopt it, from the lowest democratic forum in the country right up to the Dáil itself. We must remind ourselves of where we are. Sometimes in the middle of the debate I think I am in a different country. The country that existed ten years ago is completely different to the one we live in today. We have all been part of that transformation, which happened in a short space of time. There has been significant involvement and investment, which has benefited the entire country and every region. However, the Border, midlands and western region, of which all Deputies in this House are constantly speaking, has not had the same benefits or level of investment as other areas. If we want to maintain the impetus for economic development for the future, we need a framework – a spatial framework, as other countries have. Ireland is one of the first to do this in Europe – there are only two or three countries ahead of us.
I spoke about this recently in Northern Ireland, sharing a platform with the then Minister for Regional Development, Mr. Peter Robinson, who was extremely positive about the benefits of a co-ordinated approach to many aspects of the Northern Ireland strategy and our own. That is why areas such as Dundalk, Cavan-Monaghan and Letterkenny, which is linked with Derry, have developed positively using the critical mass available to us in different parts of the island. The Deputy is right to say that infrastructure and major investment must follow if the framework is to be implemented, but we are talking about a 20 year framework. We have had a significant transformation in the public finances in the last five or six years, almost doubling the level of investment in the country. That is a good thing and everybody benefits. Now we must focus on creating real jobs and living space in areas other than Dublin, so that people who come from those places or want to live there will have certainty.
Equally, for foreign direct investment or indigenous investment, there can now be certainty. Speaking to a number of companies in America 12 months ago, I was amazed at the questions about planning, roads and waste management for these areas, the latter of which has come to the top of the agenda, as Deputy Cuffe knows, for companies coming into the country. All arms of the State – the public sector, the private sector and the semi-State sector – will get involved in investment in these areas because they will see that the State will provide the levers. If we are serious we must create the gateways from which goods and services will emanate for the home market and for export. The plan sets out how we do that.
In view of the fact that the spatial strategy links Tralee and Killarney in County Kerry, Ballina and Castlebar in County Mayo and Tullamore, Mullingar and Athlone in the midlands, ought the Minister not link Dundalk with Drogheda, particularly as the distance between them is shorter than the distances between the other towns?
No, because the reality is that Drogheda has grown enormously, has been very successful and will continue to be so. The emphasis was on moving away from Dublin's sphere of influence. We want to offer to the people a vision of where Ireland will be in 20 years. The Deputy says, as many other Deputies have said in debates over the years, that there is a lack of balanced regional development. The Government accepts that. All the expertise consulted on this issue said the same thing. Now we have produced a spatial strategy and while it is possible to be subjective at a micro level, the reality is that Drogheda is hugely successful and will continue to be so. The spatial strategy does not inhibit continuing development in any place.
The document places emphasis on gateways and hubs, towns and villages and on sustainable development. Is it Government policy to discourage the building of one-off urban generated houses in rural areas?
This has been a bone of contention for some time. There are many areas with a dispersed population where people are involved in agriculture or have gone there because of a business. We want people to continue living in sparsely populated areas and many choose to do so. I am not implacably opposed to one-off housing. The problem lies with one-off housing around urban areas. The villages and smaller towns offer the opportunity to maximise the facilities that are put in place. I will not stand up and suggest that people are not entitled to live on their own land in different parts of the country. It is a good thing, I support it in the spatial strategy and people will welcome it.
I read the paragraph on page 106 of the strategy several times and it gets more complicated every time. I suspect it is a fudge. On page 122 there is no specific commitment to legislation or the amendment of existing development plans. Does the Minister intend to introduce legislation or does he hope that regional and local authorities will take on board the implications of this plan in the way they took on board the strategic planning guidelines? The guidelines were not fully taken on board in Kildare or Meath. I am worried that will happen in this instance.
The Planning and Development Act took on board many powers in advance of publication of the spatial strategy. Those powers were not exercised because we did not yet have a strategy. There are requirements to ensure the strategy is continually driven forward. In my view legislation will be needed but I am teasing out the issues with my officials. I have no problem with introducing legislation to ensure we deliver on the spatial strategy.
Is the Minister not concerned that the strategy will be seriously hindered, if not unworkable, because of the policies signalled in the Book of Estimates? There is no question that they will seriously inhibit the potential of the strategy to deliver in real terms, both for the hubs and the designated gateway towns.
Will a real programme of decentralisation follow publication of the strategy? The Minister for Finance has promised decentralisation for many years. It was supposed to be delivered by the end of 1999 but we still have not seen it. It could address the congestion in Dublin and the need for other regional centres to develop. Decentralisation is the key to this.
The Government will spend €30 billion in the coming year, an increase on last year. We are currently at a plateau in comparison with previous years and we will maintain that level. The macroeconomic situation has slowed some of the projects but we have to balance fiscal management and going forward. This plan has a 20 to 25 year timescale for the framework of the entire country. It will take three national development plans, one after the other, before we really see the vision come to life. We should not expect the strategy to change the world in two or three years. I am confident, however, that in ten or 20 years, we will look back on this and say that it worked. There is no reason it should not work. We must not forget the volume of investment that will be made, even in the present difficult financial situation. All projects to which the Government is committed will be delivered under the national development plan. The Government is committed to decentralisation.