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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 16 Nov 2011

Vol. 746 No. 4

Infrastructure and Capital Investment 2012-2016: Statements

Last week I set out the Government's capital spending programme for the next five years. It was part of a series of important announcements leading up to budget day. It commenced with my colleague, the Minister for Finance, publishing the medium term fiscal statement on 4 November and tomorrow I will announce a series of reforms in the public sector.

As I emphasised last week when launching the capital review, the level of expenditure is based on what we can afford. In that context, we have prioritised the investments that are most needed in our economy and in our country. Other desirable projects will have to be put on hold until the public finances are repaired.

Our priorities as a Government are clear and are evident in the published plan. In summary, they are jobs, schools and health care. It is also based firmly on the fact that we are effectively at the end of a major phase of Exchequer funded capital investment. Over the past decade, €70 billion was invested in infrastructure and the productive sector. Judged by a range of measures, the quality and quantity of the country's stock of infrastructure has been considerably augmented in recent years.

While the plan presents the quantum of funding available over the medium term, it is also grounded in the reality that we need to reduce spending. Nobody in the House does not understand that. We know that this must be an over-riding objective. We need to reduce our deficit, regain our national sovereignty and put ourselves in a position where we have more resources available to make choices ourselves.

However, until then, we must make some stark choices, focus on key needs and delay or cancel some projects which have been planned for some time and which we would have been delighted to go ahead with if the resources allowed. For this reason, I am delighted that the Government is in a position to part-fund the construction of the new children's hospital with some of the proceeds from a new licensing arrangement for the national lottery which will involve an upfront payment in exchange for a longer-term licence. I will bring the details of this proposal to Government early in the new year. It is expected, subject to planning approval, that construction of the hospital will start in 2013 with initial enabling works to start next year. As I already said, in the absence of this innovative approach to funding the national children's hospital, it would have been a real struggle to meet the necessary funding requirements for what most Members of the House regard as a very important national facility.

This capital investment report is primarily about allocations through the public capital programme over the coming years. In addition to this, the Government is determined to maximise the use of all available resources to promote growth and job creation. The Government is pursuing a strategic investment strategy, which brings together a number of strands of non-traditional funding, through NewERA and the strategic investment fund to be developed into a strategic investment bank over time. Last week the strategic investment fund announced a new fund of up to €1 billion for investment in new and existing infrastructure in this country primarily aimed at the commercial semi-state sector. Other funds will be announced in the coming months and years. We will also pursue the PPP approach to deliver public infrastructure alongside more traditional procurement where it makes sense and offers value for money. Of course, I acknowledge that the private funding market for PPPs is very challenging. Bank credit is in sort supply internationally and our sovereign debt situation presents challenges and difficulties. I have asked my officials to actively engage with private institutional investors to see what might be possible to match our immediate funding requirements with their long-term income stream needs. A series of meetings has been organised to progress this matter. My officials are also in consultation with our European counterparts to explore best practice and similar initiatives in other jurisdictions. This work is being given immediate priority in my Department.

The capital review represents the findings of a Government-wide review of infrastructure and capital investment policy led by my Department. While I have been upfront that the level of resources available to us does not match the investment of recent years or, indeed, our ambition as a Government, it remains the case that this plan sets out a significant tranche of investment over the next five years — investment designed to facilitate economic growth and build our social infrastructure.

The potential negative consequences of reduced capital spending are tempered by recent improvements in the economy's infrastructure, perhaps best illustrated by completion of the new motorway network.

Despite very difficult budgetary parameters the capital investment programme for 2012-16 will amount to approximately €17 billion. In 2012, the allocation will be €3.9 billion, reducing to €3.3 billion in 2013 and stabilising for the remaining three years at €3.2 billion annually. As indicated, the profile of capital spend will now see an increasing share of our scarce resources focus on and allocated to jobs, schools and health care facilities.

Creating jobs remains a top priority for Government. A range of reforms of activation and training are in progress and the review commits major resources to the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. While the need to address fiscal targets will require some reduction in the funding for research and development, we are ensuring that our direct supports to industry will be maintained in excess of pre-recession levels when total capital expenditure was, as a full quantum, at its highest.

This will enable the IDA to deliver on its Horizon 2020 strategy, targeting the creation of 105,000 new jobs and achieving 640 investments in the years 2012 to 2014. Enterprise Ireland will continue to support the growth and development of Irish enterprises in world markets. Its science technology and innovation budget will increase the number of high performance start-ups supported to 95 in 2012 and includes a new fund of €10 million to attract overseas high performance start-ups.

While the Science Foundation Ireland budget has been marginally reduced, the €156 million allocation will enable it to significantly enhance commercialisation opportunities emanating from SFI-funded research, in particular through the enhancement of the technology innovation development awards programme. Some €27 million will be provided for the programme for research in third level institutions and will go towards research in the areas of energy, the biosciences, arts, humanities, social sciences, medicine, pharmaceuticals, food and health.

An additional 70,000 pupils in school at primary and secondary level need to be provided. I have, therefore, allocated €2.1 billion specifically for the delivery of an additional 40 schools and the expansion and renovation of an existing 180 schools. This level of investment has squeezed out other possible investment in third level areas but we are in the business of prioritisation and the money must be put where it is urgently needed.

In addition to our plans to develop the national children's hospital, health capital investment has been sustained, an area I was most anxious to protect.

This review maintains existing planned levels of health capital investment into the medium term at €390 million a year or €1.95 billion over the period of the plan. This investment will allow for the replacement of the Central Mental Hospital and the national project for radiation oncology. For too long focus on mental health services has fallen off the table. I, along with the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, am anxious to ensure this will not continue to be the case. Our focus on primary health care is a key component of our strategy to deliver care locally which will take pressure off the acute hospital sector.

Despite investing €5 billion in improving water services in the past decade, environmental infrastructure continues to be an issue. Consequently, alongside structural reforms to the water sector, water services investment will be a key focus of the programme. In the years to 2016, in excess of €1.6 billion of Exchequer resources will be committed to the water services area.

The Office of Public Works allocation of €500 million includes funding for the flood relief programme, the necessity of which we were reminded of only too recently. In recent years the State has spent heavily to incentivise households and businesses to enhance energy efficiency. We will continue a level of support in the short term and hope to find other funding mechanisms for medium-term support.

While the motorway network is almost complete, the Government is still allocating significant funds to the transport area. Among the main priorities over the medium term will be ensuring adequate maintenance of the national road network to protect the value of investment. It is necessary to put on hold some of the large scale projects that had been announced previously as they are not affordable. It is our job to ensure our public finances can be restored to allow these projects emerge in the not-too-distant future.

The departmental envelope, however, will allow the commencement of the linking of the two LUAS lines which will incorporate a line extending to Broombridge in north-west Dublin. The railway safety programme, replacement buses, particularly for Dublin, and the upgrade of existing quality bus corridors will also be delivered.

Is it agreed the Minister will be given time to finish his statement? Agreed.

Over €800 million will also be invested in programmes through the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, a significant increase on the programme signed off by our predecessors, bringing major economic and environmental benefits. It is important to note the agrifood sector's contribution to the economy has been largely resilient.

While there have been calls to continue with a high level of capital investment to give a stimulus to the economy, the need to reduce public expenditure and close the deficit is an inescapable demand on the Government. The Government's medium-term fiscal statement sets the parameters for budgetary policy in the coming years. As a result of this and in the context of setting the overall path of fiscal consolidation, the public capital programme has been scaled back. However, the Government is providing for a level of funding that will not constrain the capacity of the economy to grow. This is the normal benchmark for deciding on the appropriate level of infrastructure investment. Between now and 2016, average public capital spending will remain broadly in line with the European average, despite the tight fiscal constraints.

A wide range of programmes and projects will be funded and €17 billion is still a remarkable amount of money. The areas with an increased share of the overall capital allocation compared with the last capital review in 2010 are education, health and enterprise. This reflects the priorities I set and those set by the Government.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for providing me with extra time.

With the permission of the House, I wish to share time with Deputy McConalogue.

Is that agreed? Agreed.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate and the Minister being present in the Chamber. He has given a strong overview of where he sees the capital programme over the next five years and how jobs, schools and health care will be key and central parts of it. This speech is not, however, connected to last week's announcement about the capital programme. There is an element of rhetoric to the Government's claim that job creation is to the fore of its agenda. If €1 million of capital spend supports 12 people in employment, the proposal to take €750 million, a considerable amount of money, out of the capital infrastructure spend will see direct job cuts of approximately 9,000, notwithstanding the removal of the stimulus effect such spending would have.

The Minister displayed an aggressive approach to assisting with finding other sources of funding. The programme refers to the capacity of developing a fund of €1 billion. In other parts of the programme, however, it is made clear public private partnerships, PPPs, will not be possible. On the one hand the Minister has created an expectation that he will be able leverage €250 million from the State pension fund to create €1 billion.

That has been done already.

Yes, but on the other hand the Minister claims there is no appetite for Government debt through PPP projects. He has not taken an imaginative approach to dealing with each project in turn. As such, many capital projects have been shelved.

The Government has not shown little ambition in prioritising the fund for the capital programme. The PPP model has been set aside with little effort made to attract potential international investors with the prospect of investing in a recovering economy. The failure to put in place a credible funding mechanism to complement Exchequer funding has resulted in a complete gutting of the capital spend and all the impact that this will have with job losses.

Looking at the basic population statistics, one knows there is a need for capital investment. Ireland's population continues to grow rapidly with the 2011 census showing an increase of 341,000 people since 2006, an annual rise of 1.6%. Ireland is expected to have one of the strongest population growth rates in the EU over the next several years. While this will be a large long-term economic advantage for the country, it will undoubtedly place pressure on the State's infrastructure resources.

In his various statements, the Minister has made guarded compliments of the previous Administration for the significant investments it made in rail, road, water services and so forth. There is a clear need to continue this. Excess activity in the construction sector in the past is regularly sited as a primary contributor the country's economic crisis. While this is true, an often overlooked fact is that considerable construction industry expertise was built up which was capable of delivering major projects such as the interurban motorways, the Aviva Stadium, the criminal courts of justice and the National Convention Centre. The last tranche of motorways was built at €4.5 million per kilometre which compares very favourably with European norms. With reduced tender prices, there is an opportunity to achieve a greater volume of output. The scaled back capital programme is bad for both short-term and long-term economic growth. It will lead to a further drain of world-class expertise and skills from the State. These skills will unfortunately now be put to use in the UK, Europe, Canada and Australia.

The State has already committed considerable resources to several capital projects which have now been shelved by the Government. Up to €150 million has so far been contributed to the metro north project, €40 million to Thornton Hall prison, €35 million to the DART underground, €18 million to metro west, €4 million on extending the Luas to Lucan and €2.5 million on the M20. Given the degree of work already done on many of these essential infrastructure projects and their potential for sustaining jobs in the short, medium and long term, it is inexplicable that the Minister and the Government have not shown greater imagination in seeking funding for these projects.

The Minister indicated it is reasonable to expect that there will be investment in infrastructural projects. I appeal to him to do that on a project by project basis. It is my understanding that there seems to be an appetite for that, perhaps not directly but in the next year. Because of the crises enveloping the world there are not many other locations that do not have risk attached to them. The medium term view from the investment community is that there will be a desire to invest in capital projects that have their own revenue-generating schemes. It beggars belief, therefore, that the Government has shelved these major infrastructural projects that have their own capacity to generate revenue and suggested that this NewERA fund, without the appropriate information accompanying it, will be the solution to the creation of jobs.

I do not buy the Government's stance that it is serious about creating jobs. We have not seen the effects of that. We heard about 105,000 and 120,000 jobs in the Minister's contribution. We heard all of that from Fine Gael in the run-in to the election. Thankfully, the Minister's colleague, the Minister for Finance, poured cold water on the NewERA proposal because he is a realist. He did not involve himself in the propaganda in advance of the election and he is owed a debt of gratitude for that.

We will have to work on a project by project basis to get people back to work. We must look to small enterprise and stimulating activity in the economy. This announcement does the opposite. It puts a damper on economic activity and infrastructural investment and acts as a disincentive to investment from outside this State.

I thank Deputy Dooley for sharing time. I refer to the capital infrastructural development plan and in particular this Government's commitment to the A5 dual carriageway from the Monaghan border to Derry City linking Monaghan to Donegal and to the north-west region. We have seen in the publication of the Minister's investment plan last week a betrayal of the people of the north west in terms of a commitment given by this Government to fund that project jointly to the tune of £400 million, in conjunction with £400 million committed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as part of the St. Andrews Agreement, to build that road by 2015, a commitment confirmed by the previous Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, when he attended two North South Ministerial Council meetings. Just eight months ago he recommitted at that meeting that the money would be spent. Now we have a situation where the Minister and his fellow Cabinet members will travel to a meeting in Armagh the day after tomorrow following which they will try to sell to the people of the north west the message that he is now giving £50 million, the first £25 million of which he will not be given until the year in which cars should have been driving up and down the dual carriageway with the second £25 million not being provided until the year after the road was supposed to be finished. The Minister will try to sell that to the people of the north west as a success.

It is rarely in generations that we get an opportunity similar to the one presented to the north-west region recently where two jurisdictions, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, are willing to come together and co-fund a project that will see the north west get the same type of infrastructure that has been delivered across other main arteries in our road network in recent years. This project could not have been contemplated until the Northern Ireland Executive was set up in 2007, the very year this agreement was made.

The Minister's Government must reconsider this decision. He should have a debate on the floor of this Dáil later today or tomorrow because it is unacceptable that his Cabinet will travel to Armagh on Friday without dealing with what was a solemn commitment to the people of the north west. He should do that on the floor of this House before he goes to Armagh to break that commitment. I want an assurance from the Minister that that will take place either tonight or tomorrow, that he will work with the Northern Ireland Executive to ensure it continues to ring-fence the £400 million it had set aside for this project and that he will find a way to give the £400 million this country promised to ensure that the north west does not lose this project which will benefit future generations.

This plan as announced will do two things. It will lock this State into growth stagnation and will also condemn this State to many more years of very high levels of unemployment. The Minister's Government, and I have heard his arguments about fiscal rectitude and balancing the books, much like the previous one, fundamentally misunderstands the critical role of capital investment and stimulus in respect of economic recovery, not just in terms of getting people back to work but enhancing our competitiveness and making us match fit for foreign direct investment but also for indigenous enterprise.

Instead of the kind of ambitious, thought out investment programme we require what we have seen is what my colleague, Deputy Peadar Tóibín, accurately described when the Minister announced this programme as a debt for competitiveness swap. Vital infrastructure projects will not see the light of day and our economy will be measurably weakened. All of that will mean a higher cost to our citizens and to business and we will continue to see a truly depressed domestic sector. The Minister's commitments in terms of capital investment, much like the fiscal statement, resign it and us to critically high levels of unemployment for years to come.

I will go through some of the areas the Minister has identified as critical. Despite his trumpeting of the figure of €17 billion over a five year period next year's budget has been cut by €755 million down to a level of €3.9 billion. That will fall further in 2013 to €3.3 billion, €3.2 billion the following year and so on. As the Minister trumpets the figure of €17 billion it should not be lost on him, us or the general public that a substantial cutback is in play.

I turn to the matter of health. The Minister states that close to €2 billion will be invested in health capital spending from 2012 to 2016. The truth is that more than that needs to be done. The health capital spend for the next four years amounts to more than €1 billion less than the annual cost to the State of the Anglo Irish Bank debt. That is ironic, and indefensible.

The Minister's capital programme for health is short on detail. The commitments to fund the National Children's Hospital and to expand radiation oncology are welcome but there is very little detail of how and where——

And the Central Mental Hospital is important too.

——vital primary care centres will be provided. That is a long-standing and overdue commitment.

From the point of view of health service users the capital programme is critically undermined by the savage spending cuts that continue to be imposed. For example, the HSE is retreating from care of the elderly as shown by the closure of care homes in Abbeyleix, Dublin and Athlone in the past year. Much of the existing health infrastructure — hospital wards and beds in public hospitals — goes unused because of the Minister's recruitment embargo and spending cuts.

What appears to be in an investment is too little and it is undermined by other elements of Government policy.

In respect of transport, the previous speaker eloquently made the case for the construction of the A5 motorway. Some of the Minister's colleagues on the benches opposite have become deeply concerned about matters in the North, including expenditure commitments. Perhaps the Minister will inform them that whereas the commitment from up the road to fund the vital A5 project is still intact, the Government has retreated from its long-standing commitment to people in counties Derry and Donegal and the entire north-west region. I ask him to make this clear to his colleagues.

Projects such as metro north and the Navan to Dublin rail line would have significantly increased competitiveness and trade in the mid-east and north-west regions. The metro west project and extension of heavy rail to Navan and the Luas to Lucan and Bray have been deferred. The Government has missed a major opportunity to invest in job creation and, if I may say so as a Dubliner, make the capital city a better place to live, visit or do business in. Thankfully, not all public transport projects have been scrapped and the BDX Luas link-up is set to proceed. Given the substantial investment already made in the metro north project, the decision on the link-up is cold comfort to taxpayers as it will not provide anything close to the benefits of metro north. By taking these regressive steps, the Government has again shown its lack of vision and placed the country at a disadvantage.

The allocated budget for the improvement and maintenance of roads for 2012 has been reduced by €120 million on the 2011 Estimates and will continue to decrease in subsequent years. This news will not be welcomed anywhere in the State.

On education, the Government has committed to constructing 40 new schools, with an even split between primary and secondary schools, while renovations or extensions are to be carried out on 180 schools. As the Minister is aware, this investment is but a drop in the ocean when one considers the type of investment required at primary and secondary level.

Sinn Féin's pre-budget analysis and submission sets out much more ambitious targets which can be met. The Government has put on ice the Grangegorman campus development by postponing it indefinitely. I am sure the Minister is aware that the project has a long history. Launched in September 2010 under the banner "Grangegorman — Building Dublin's Future", it was supposed to provide cutting edge mental health facilities and a state-of-the-art campus for the Dublin Institute of Technology. The project also promised to deliver 4,500 construction jobs and more than 1,000 permanent jobs post-construction in retail, maintenance and so forth. Having been put on ice by the Government, will we now use the by-line "Grangegorman: Freezing Dublin's Future"?

The report is lamentable in respect of broadband as it does not give any commitment to provide Exchequer funding for next generation broadband. Instead, it states simply that the next generation broadband task force is due to report by the end of the year and aims to assist in identifying future infrastructures. This type of laissez-faire attitude to the delivery of next generation broadband is nothing short of scandalous. I am interested in hearing how the Minister will defend the Government’s position on the issue.

The water network is portrayed in the report as environmental infrastructure. The report also notes that the allocation of €500 million to the Office of Public Works will include funding for flood relief. Water services, including access to clean drinking water and proper drainage and sewerage services, are not environmental infrastructures. The State is still at a stage where we require water infrastructure for reasons of human health and health and safety. The provision made for flood relief programmes is inadequate. In parts of this city the system is so antiquated that homes are regularly flooded in sewage and foul water. The Government must revisit these issues.

I hope I have made clear to the Minister in the short time available to me my party's serious disappointment with this grossly inadequate plan.

The Government, at the behest of the European Union and International Monetary Fund, is pursuing the economics of the madhouse. It is bad enough that tens of billions of euro are being poured into the vaults of banks and pockets of bondholders but the price being paid for this policy is mass unemployment and extreme suffering among some of the most vulnerable sectors of society. It is not, however, only the moral injustice of this approach for which society is paying the price because, critically, we are robbing ourselves of the means to deal with the unemployment crisis and put the economy back on a sound footing which would allow us to recover and develop a sustainable economic future. Nowhere is this issue more sharply focused than in the question of capital investment. The State needs to play a key role in investing in our future and prioritising capital investment if we are to have any chance of getting out of what increasingly appears will be a 1930s style economic meltdown in Europe.

The policy of recapitalising private banks with a view to producing a flow of credit to small and medium enterprises, about which the Government argues it is seriously concerned, has been a catastrophic failure. It has utterly failed either to produce a flow of credit to the SME sector or provide relief for mortgage holders whose circumstances are massively depressing demand in the economy. If all of this were not bad enough, the one other possible avenue for moving matters forward and getting us out of the current mess, namely, State investment in key, strategic projects both in infrastructure and other areas where we could generate real wealth and employment, has been closed off. State investment is even more important in light of the fact that the other key feature of the recession across Europe and specifically in this country has been the decision of the big players in the private sector effectively to go on strike and refuse to invest. Given the collapse in private sector investment, who will make the investment that will get people back to work? Only the State can fulfil this role but instead it is cutting capital investment at the behest of the EU and IMF. There is no way forward if the Government persists with this approach. I find it somewhat laughable that the Minister speaks about the improvements in our infrastructure in recent years. Money has been spent on infrastructure and there may have been some improvements, but he only has to look at the floods last week and the devastating impact they have had on many parts of the city to realise how bad our water infrastructure is and how criminal it was that we did not invest in rehabilitating that water and drainage infrastructure. That will cost not only the victims of those floods, but society in general, if we do not invest in that. I suggest the Minister reads Ulysses, because James Joyce complained a hundred years ago about the failure of the Office of Public Works to invest in the water infrastructure.

The Deputy should get out to Dún Laoghaire more often.

Nothing has changed and these cuts will make it worse.

Education is key if we are to have any chance. The construction of a new DIT campus in Grangegorman has been scrapped when we should be investing in that area. In my own constituency, the IADT in Dún Laoghaire is 1,000 students over capacity because it was expecting new buildings, but the construction of these new buildings has now been shelved. This is disastrous. We have 96,000 people on the housing list, and the Government's policy is to stop building social housing and lease properties from private landlords instead. This will be more costly for the State and will cripple the possibilities of economic growth, development and recovery if the Government persists in going ahead with these cuts in capital expenditure. We need to increase investment in capital expenditure and that means telling the troika to get lost and to stuff their monetarist mantras.

The Minister stated that the three objectives are jobs, schools and health care. When this €17 billion is spent, it looks as if about 50,000 of the 447,000 currently out of work will be positively impacted by this investment, which is incredibly disappointing. We all understand that there is a very constrained financial situation imposed on this State at the moment. With the very limited time available, I would like to focus on one or two issues and I regret we do not have a lot more time.

The balance between capital spending on roads and public transport in recent programmes has improved in recent years. On this particular occasion, it has been skewed dramatically in favour of roads as opposed to public transport. There is twice the Exchequer spend on roads than on public transport, and that is very regrettable. I would like to deal with one particular issue that could bring competitiveness if we invest correctly. The State will recover from the city outwards and this particular city region is the biggest city, especially when counties that border it are included. Since the Dublin transport initiative in the early 1990s, in which I was involved, the interconnector and what has become the DART underground has been part of every capital programme. It would link the 19th century railway lines, which all terminated on the periphery of the city. They were never networked. That network would produce an absolutely astonishing result. Barry Kenny of Irish Rail has said that it would be a "game changer". It will treble the rail capacity from the current 33 million passengers per annum to 100 million per annum.

The money invested from Structural Funds in the early 1990s was based on various themes. One of the reasons for investment in public transport, such as the Luas and other projects, was because it would make this area more competitive. Congestion was causing a serious impediment to doing business in this region. The one project that could have pulled all that together and been a real driver of competitiveness was the DART underground, or the interconnector. I think it is absolutely criminal that this is not going ahead.

We have to be imaginative about some of these projects. Even in the dark days of the 19th century, money was put into the railway system. Most of it was put in from private funds. There may well be scope in the pension funds to invest in something that would produce a return like this particular project. Part of the reason for proposing the new children's hospital at a site on the Mater hospital was due to the public transport improvements to be made. They are now being downgraded from the capital programme and that is very regrettable.

If we are going to recover, we have to give ourselves the best possible chance. By not investing in some of these big capital projects, such as DART underground and metro north, we are reducing the capacity of that part of the country that has the numbers and needs that extra lift in competitiveness. We are reducing the chance of an early recovery by virtue of that one particular decision.

We will now move on to questions. I call Deputy McHugh.

I want to make a point about the A5, which was mentioned by previous speakers. It is important to realise the complexity of that particular project, which will bring investment to the north west. It is important to state a few facts. The Fianna Fáil Party, in its programme for Government, did not have one single penny for that capital project. Sinn Féin produced a pre-budget submission yesterday that did not make one reference to the A5 programme. It is important that we get a bit more illumination on that point.

I would like to acknowledge the role played by Deputy McDonald's colleague, Deputy Mac Lochlainn. Once this debate emerged last week, there was much grandstanding, jumping up and down and noise made about a project being shelved, even though it is not being shelved. Obviously, it is being reprofiled due to the economic situation, but it is important to say that this project is still alive. There is a critical meeting this Friday of the North-South Ministerial Council that will decide on how we move forward with the project. I acknowledge the role Deputy Mac Lochlainn has played in having a little bit of calm about this. Ultimately, it is sensitive to a region, it cuts across jurisdictions and parties and the mechanisms towards which we aspire through the North-South Parliamentary Forum will be critical to developing integrated projects.

The Deputy is not asking questions.

You need to ask a question.

I have one question for Deputies on that side of the House. I am calling for a little bit of restraint in this debate.

The Deputy has to ask questions of the Minister.

There is a critical meeting on Friday and the divide and conquer theory in this House suits certain elements in Northern Ireland. If we cannot get a little bit of stability behind the rationale of austerity, which Sinn Féin in power acknowledges in Northern Ireland, we should not send out the negative signal that this project has been derailed or shelved, because that has not happened. I am confident that there will be a bit of calm after the meeting on Friday. I ask the Minister to ensure that this calm prevails on Friday.

Before we proceed, I remind Deputies and the Minister that the more concise the questions and responses, the better we can share the time available. We have only 45 minutes in total.

On the same matter——

Will Deputies please follow that suggestion?

Very nicely put, Chairman.

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