Vol. 1052 No. 7
49. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform whether the Government has adequately considered the growing problem of labour and skills shortages in multiple sectors of the society and economy, including construction, healthcare, education, childcare and more, in the context of the National Development Plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17862/24]
54. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform if he is aware of the issues raised by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, in respect of the national development plan (details supplied), particularly in terms of capacity and resource constraints to deliver public housing, elder-care facilities and childcare and increase the number of hospital beds; his plans to address these issues; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17863/24]
These questions follow on from our earlier discussion and relate to what the Government is doing to build up our labour and skills capacity to deliver housing, in particular, but also some of the other key infrastructure we need. My point, given the Minister said he did not understand it, is not that everything the private sector does is wrong but that it simply does not have the capacity and, therefore, the State has to build up its own capacity.
However, there is little sign that the State understands that and is pursuing it with rigour.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 49 and 54 together.
What does the Deputy mean by "capacity"? Does he mean numbers of people? Does he mean bricklayers, carpenters and plumbers?
Regardless of whether the State or the private sector was seeking to hire them, they were not available in the quantity we needed in recent years. That is the key point I am making to the Deputy. If they were not there to be hired, changing the nature of the employer would not have made any difference.
What we are doing to build up capacity involves the steps that were taken by the then Minister and now Taoiseach, Deputy Harris, and are now being continued by the Minister, Deputy O’Donovan, in respect of apprenticeships and encouraging more people into the construction sector, showing them that it is something they can have a career in, and giving them the training and support they need to be provided with good jobs over longer working lives. These are the steps that are being taken from a human capital point of view.
Other steps that the Government has taken to try to build up general capacity in the economy include the changes we made to the public spending code, whereby we moved from a code that could at times be rigid to infrastructural guidelines, thereby allowing individual Departments more responsibility so that the money we allocate to them can more quickly turn into the delivery of projects. We have made changes to the capital works management framework in order to rebalance risk within the public works contract and further incentivise SMEs to become involved in the delivery of important public sector projects. We have made changes to how we oversee the implementation of the national development plan, whereby Ministers must bring forward updates on their capital spending and bring forward an overall statement to the Cabinet every quarter to update it on what we are doing to deliver the NDP on top of the large increases in capital expenditure that I outlined to Deputy Conway-Walsh.
We are dealing with a housing emergency. Most people recognise that. I hope the Government does. We need to dramatically increase the amount of housing we build, in particular social and affordable housing. Recently, Goodbody Stockbrokers produced a report showing that there are only five builders in this country capable of building more than 500 houses per year while the majority of the rest – 473 or so small contractors – can only build an approximate average of 34 houses per year each. The capacity is not there, and it is not going to be provided by those small builders.
How do we get young people, people who have come to this country and are now languishing in direct provision and people who have finished their apprenticeships but are leaving to go to Canada, Australia or wherever to go into construction? The State should go into the sector and make it attractive for them to move into construction. The State should ramp up apprenticeships and, unlike in previous construction booms or upswings, we should send the message that if people go into construction, they will not be landed on the dole at the next collapse because it has all been left up to the private market, but that there will instead be sustainable, secure and decent employment that the State will guarantee.
We can allow an extra supplementary question because these questions are grouped.
That is exactly what the Government is doing. How are we going to get more companies involved in the building of homes if Deputies like Deputy Boyd Barrett always take the view that any private sector company getting involved in the delivery of building a new home is suspicious? The Deputy sees it like that. On the one hand, he is lamenting that we do not have larger companies involved in the delivery of building more homes, but at the same time, he is the very first Deputy to be critical – at times, highly critical – of the private sector in the delivery of those homes. He cannot have it both ways. He cannot ride both horses at the same time.
What we are seeing happen, through our local authorities and approved housing bodies, is the State building more and more homes directly. The Deputy should not come in wringing his hands at me and saying that the private sector should be building more and we should have bigger builders while also being continually suspicious and critical of the private sector in its role delivering more homes.
No, I am not suspicious. I can just see the facts for myself, as can everyone else, including the builders. Even they are saying this. We cannot deliver the necessary housing. Cairn Homes has said it. Goodbody Stockbrokers have said it. Builders do not have the capacity. By the way, they are not in the business of producing subsidised housing. They do not do that. What they are delivering is unaffordable, but let them away. We need social and affordable housing and the State has to have the capacity to do that, since private developers are not going to do it.
We used to have tradespeople in our local authority, but it has run them down, as have local authorities all over the country. Why are apprentices and tradespeople not being recruited into local authorities? At a time when we are facing a housing emergency, why would we not ramp that up so that we could have the State construction capacity to supplement the market failure we are seeing and compensate for the incapacity of the private sector to deliver on the scale we need?
This politics is performative for the Deputy. He knows our local authorities are building more homes. He knows more money is going into the local authorities to do this. He knows our delivery of social housing is increasing year after year. He is aware of the efforts being made, including in apprenticeship programmes, to make construction a more attractive career for people to go into. The Deputy knows all of this. I find it extraordinary that a man who does not have a good word to say about the operation of economies is quoting a stockbroking report in the way he is and wringing his hands that the private sector cannot do more when he is always critical and excoriating of the role of the private sector in the delivery of homes.
I will revert to what I said at the start of our exchange. We need two things. We are in the middle of such need and such challenge in the delivery of more homes that we require the private sector to do more. Where market failure is occurring, and even where it is not occurring, we need a strong State that is delivering more homes to fulfil our commitments to citizens who need social housing. That is happening. The figures that will be published by the Government tomorrow will indicate the progress that we are making this year alone in delivering that.
The Minister stated that local authorities are delivering more housing. No, they are not. They are not building anything at all. They are commissioning private construction. I accept that is better than doing nothing when we do not have the capacity, but they are not actually building anything themselves, given that the State does not have any capacity.
I wish the Minister would not mischaracterise me, as what I am arguing is that this is not enough. The Minister can play politics if he wants, but I am saying that it is not enough and that the housing crisis is the largest example - a catastrophic one - of market failure. That is not a criticism of these people - I could do that on another day - but a clear statement of fact. They are not going to do it. They do not have the capacity and it is not their business to produce not-for-profit low-cost housing. That is not what they do. We need to build up our own capacity. That means direct capacity, with the State having its own ability to build things.
We are clutching at straws here. The Deputy is acknowledging that local authorities are building more homes.
No. I said they were not building.
Is the Deputy acknowledging that local-----
They contract people to do it.
I have tonnes of social houses in my constituency. They are run by Dublin City Council. It might matter to the Deputy whether the private sector is recruited by a local authority-----
I just said it was better than nothing.
It might matter to the Deputy, but what about the person who is going into that home? We are trying to have a debate and I am giving the Deputy facts with which he is clearly uncomfortable. He does not like when I challenge the ideologies that he wraps around housing.
If the local authority is using private plumbers and bricklayers and small to medium-sized construction companies to deliver more local houses, it does not matter to the person who is moving into one of those houses as to who built it. I can see that with the progress that has been made on the northside of Dublin alone. I can see the progress that is on the way.
As for the Deputy's idea that the State should build capacity to do what we are talking about, I must inform him that this is the kind of project it would take years to complete and that would have local authorities all competing against each other. Our local authorities are building more homes, and we need to continue to support them in doing that.
50. Deputy Catherine Connolly asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform further to Parliamentary Question No. 105 of 8 February 2024, the status of the review by the Coirib go Cósta steering group of the draft revised programme incorporating the additional scope for the Coirib go Cósta flood relief scheme; the timeline for the publication of the revised project programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14381/24]
Staying with the same theme, I happen to have two questions. It is good that I can explore the issue a little with the Minister. We have a steering group and I am asking the Minister the status of the review by the steering group, where is it at, when will it be published and when will we see the revised project programme. Let the Minister not say that it will be done shortly..
In terms of process, the revised scope, of which the Deputy will be well aware because it is something she has brought up in Question Time previously, includes 940 properties in total, and the Deputy had defined the areas. That is being reviewed by the Coirib go Cósta steering group members and they have reached agreement on the revised scope, subject to agreement on a fee proposal from the consultants. Galway is currently liaising with the consultancy firm Arup on its fee proposal. Once that is agreed, the project programme can be finalised. It is the intention of the project steering group to publish the updated project programme to the project website - this is the word they have given me - shortly. However, I am giving a commitment to the Deputy to go back to get it finalised as quickly as possible.
The process is there. The final piece of the jigsaw is to agree a revised fee proposal with the consultants. Once that happens, they can finalise the project programme and publish it on the website. In my capacity as Minister of State with responsibility for OPW, I undertake to proactively follow-up on this and look to have it in place as quickly as I possibly can.
I thank the Minister of State. I appreciate that he is going to take a personal interest and is giving a commitment. However, there is flooding practically every year in Galway. That has been known about for a very long time. Following the mapping situation, we were into the action. The action was set out, as I said. I do not like repeating myself or wasting time, but this is extremely important for Galway. There were five stages set out. We need the people on board because, quite clearly, these will be significant works that will have many implications. We need the people on board. To that end, we had a number of consultations promised. Only one consultation has taken place. There was an informal one lately with no details for elected members. That was held in the middle of the week when no TD could attend it.
We are in a situation now where all of it has been pushed forward, a new sum of money, €50 million, has been identified-----
That is the estimate as of now.
As of now, and that could change, just like the waters can change, up or down. That is where we are. I will not go over my time.
I understand the Deputy's frustration. It is something I will follow-up on. She is very familiar with the scheme and she made reference to the areas it covers. It covers the quay walls and will extend from the dock and continue along the long walk to Spanish Arch. Properties in the Claddagh area, along with Grattan Road and Fr. Griffin would be provided protection by the construction of a quay wall along the Claddagh Basin and Nimmo's Pier. Flood defences along the property line of localised land and road-rising at Salthill will manage wave over-topping risk.
There are potentially a number of intersecting projects at varying stages from concept to completion, including the Salthill cycle scheme and the western greenway, which may possibly interact with the Coirib go Cósta - Galway city - flood relief scheme. Ultimately, the flood relief scheme is paramount. We will continue to liaise with Galway City Council and its consultants, as appropriate, with a view to maximise any mutual benefits. For me, the commitment I give here today is that I will follow-up as to where it is at in the process to get it published on the website as quickly as I possibly can.
I thank the Minister of State. He said that I am very familiar with the scheme. Unfortunately, I am not. I am very familiar with the floods. I am very familiar with the promises. I am very familiar with the targets not being met. That is what I am familiar with.
I am not here to lay blame. I am here to try to find out what is going on. Have enough resources been given to the local authority so that it can employ the expertise?
I am a little concerned that the Minister of State is talking about a fee for the extra work - not that the consultants should not be paid. Why is that not all sorted out or did I misunderstand the Minister of State say something about negotiations over a fee for the extra scope?
Yes, consultants.
That should all be sorted out. I have a library full of replies. The 940 properties did not appear yesterday. They are appearing in all my questions and answers since I started this process of asking the Minister of State. I have to face the people, as all TDs, including the Minister of State, must, while their houses are flooded, there is a major problem with insurance and there is a huge difficulty with the sale of the houses. All of the time, there is no practical information on a website to say that something has changed and this is what we are doing.
On the information that the Deputy is looking at in terms of the revised scope, Galway City Council is currently liaising with the consultants on its fee proposal. As I said, once that is agreed, the project programme can be finalised and then the project steering group will publish the updated programme to the project website shortly thereafter. What I am saying, in my capacity as Minister with responsibility for OPW, is I undertake to give the Deputy a commitment that I personally will follow-up on it to look that this will happen because that is a key element of the process.
52. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform if levels of public expenditure here are adequately proofed to ensure best outcome for the Exchequer and taxpayer; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17650/24]
The country is cursed with a number of scandals in relation to overspends on public projects. Aontú is fully in support of public project. We believe in public delivery, but the biggest threat to the confidence in public delivery has been a Government that has allowed such glacial movement in terms of infrastructural projects but also massive costs in terms of the delivery. The Government is in many ways incinerating taxpayers' money on so many projects. Vital projects are spending years in planning and delivery. I am asking what controls has Minister in terms of public spending.
Will the Deputy name a school that has gone over budget?
I have a list of projects that have gone over budget but I will use them in the second part.
Will the Deputy name a school that has gone over budget?
I have a list of projects that I will tell the Minister about in my own time.
That is fine. The reality is that when it comes to the delivery of the national broadband plan, an important school or important health projects, the majority are delivered on budget. If they are not delivered on time, it can be because of delays that take place in the planning process. We are not in a position to control the planning process. We are in a position to control the legislation around it, but not the decisions that An Bord Pleanála makes and that the judges make to respond to concerns that citizens may have that are beyond the control of the Government.
In the context of the role that we play in relation to the evaluation and the management of taxpayers' money, it happens at two different levels. The first is where funding is allocated to individual Departments allowing that to be used in the way we intend. The second is where, project by project, depending on the scale of the project and its cost, we have infrastructure guidelines that require different levels of accountability and business case evaluation. Those are the two ways in which it is done.
The Minister mentioned accountability. I am not aware of anybody in the senior levels of the Civil Service who has ever lost his or her job because a project went over budget. I am not aware of anybody who has even been moved sideways.
I will give a couple of examples. We had a farce here where €2 million was spent on a Dáil printer nobody could fit in the door. We have the national children's hospital, which was promised for 2020 at a cost of €700 million, barring an asteroid hitting the planet. We do not have an opening date yet and it is 2024, with €2.25 billion being the cost. We have the Department of Health overspending on a property owned by Larry Goodman because it did not measure it properly. We had €22 million spent on ventilators that never worked. We had Government spending €50,000 housing the ventilators that do not work, then spending €500,000 going to court against a Chinese firm to try to get its money back. The HSE cyberattack was unbelievable. A parliamentary question I submitted on that showed the Taoiseach was spending more on press statements and public relations than was being spent on the cybersecurity centre, which did not even have an office or a national director. That cyberattack then cost well over €100,000. I do not see any accountability with any of those.
One minute the Deputy is talking about overspend and the next he is talking about cyberattacks. The Deputy pretends - I say pretends because I find him entirely unconvincing in his arguments - to be making the case for the stronger State and the State doing more. I thought he was a left-of-centre politician when it came to the role of the State, but he does not appear to give the effect of that in the tone he uses about the State. It is of course the case there are individual projects the State acknowledges it got wrong and could have done differently. I have acknowledged that on many different occasions, especially with the national children's hospital, but I challenge the Deputy to name a school that has gone over budget. He should look at the progress that has been in the delivery of the national broadband plan. He should look at the progress we make in the delivery of roads and public transport projects. Of course, when the State is spending what will soon be €15 billion per year on the delivery of public infrastructure, there will be issues with how that is delivered. However, the majority of projects are delivered in the way the taxpayer wants.
Aontú want to give people confidence in the delivery of public infrastructure. This confidence has been radically eroded by the lack of Government prudence and the lack of Government ability to hold the system to account. A Minister tasked a civil servant with creating a tender for the national children's hospital. There are people who are responsible for the spending disaster that has happened. Some €300 million has been spent on the metro north system and there has not been even a shovel put into the ground. Down in Midleton we have old people working as human water gauges trying to look at the amount of water that is rising in the rivers there to ensure it does not inundate families and cause people to get killed because Governments have spent millions of euro and still have not even got a planning application for the flood defences there. We also have the massive increase in spending that is happening in the budgets at the moment. We have had Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael engaged in pre-election auction politics at their ard-fheiseanna. We have a system where the Government dresses itself up in fiscal prudence, yet is wasting hundreds of millions of euro of taxpayers' money.
I thank the Deputy. We are way over time.
Is the Deputy going to make reference to all the flood relief programmes that work? Is he going to acknowledge any of them? He brought up ventilators a moment ago. He is just the sort of Deputy who would be excoriating the Government if the ventilators were not available in the first place. We were in a crisis situation at that point-----
A person would lose their job-----
Deputy.
We were trying to save lives at that point.
If it was a private company there would be loss of jobs.
Deputy.
I can understand why he is behaving the way he is, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle-----
Deflect.
-----it is absolutely fine. The Government was trying to get ventilators at that time because we were in the middle of a global health emergency. It is frankly below the Deputy to bring into a debate like this the attempts that were being made to source ventilators for our country in the middle of a health emergency.
Ones that would have worked.
I acknowledge, and have done on many occasions, the mistakes and things we got wrong-----
But not accountability.
-----in relation to the national children's hospital, but we will hear that from the Deputy. For a man who pretends to believe the Irish State can be the source of more answers to many of our difficulties-----
I thank the Minister.
I will conclude on this. We will never hear the Deputy acknowledge that the Government, the State can do anything right-----
The State does things. The Government is not doing it.
-----and it can, it does and he does it a disservice.
55. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform the amount of funding allocated for flood relief schemes; and the amount actually drawn down or spent in each of the past five years and to date in 2024. [17649/24]
This again relates to flood defences. It is a very serious issue. I was down with Mona Stromsoe, who is the chair of the Midleton flood defence campaign, last Friday. I got to visit the location where floods did enormous damage. The water literally pulled cars out of driveways, knocked walls and did enormous damage. That town is still living with a significant fear of those floods happening again.
This is based on the question asked by the Deputy. In 2018, to establish those communities that are at risk from significant flood events, the OPW completed the largest study of flood risk ever undertaken by the State, namely, the catchment-based flood risk assessment and management, CFRAM, programme. The programme studied 80% of Ireland’s primary flood risk and identified solutions that can protect more than 95% of that risk. Some 150 additional flood relief schemes were identified through this programme. The Government has committed €1.3 billion to the delivery of these flood relief schemes over the lifetime of the national development plan to 2030 to protect approximately 23,000 properties in communities that are under threat from river and coastal flood risk.
Since 2018, a phased approach to scheme delivery, in partnership with local authorities, has allowed the OPW to treble the number of schemes at design or construction phase at this time to some 100 schemes. Expenditure in the earlier stages of a project represents a small proportion of the overall budget of a flood relief scheme. When schemes reach construction, known as stage 4 of the project, it is at this point in the project lifecycle that the scheme incurs the greatest proportion of expenditure. There is no legislative or regulatory means of fast-tracking schemes to this stage. In the years 2019 to 2023, some €290 million was invested by the OPW in the flood relief programme. To date in 2024, some €7.5 million has been spent. Expenditure trends in past years show that the majority of expenditure is incurred in the fourth quarter of the year and this trend is expected to continue in 2024. I have given a breakdown of the allocation expenditure. If we look at the past two years, the allocation in 2023 was €57.5 million and expenditure €59.2 million. In 2024 we have €82.7 million allocated and €7.5 million spent to date.
It is anticipated a strong pipeline of schemes will increase the number of projects reaching construction by the middle of the decade, thereby notably increasing the programme expenditure from 2025 to 2030. The OPW engages with the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform regarding the capital and current funding required under the national development plan and through the annual budgetary process to ensure adequate funding is available to continue to progress the programme of delivery of flood relief schemes.
I cannot overstate the damage that has been done in Midleton and how this is a threat to human lives. I saw the buildings children were being lifted out of and the flow was so strong people could not stand in those situations, so this is very serious. The Minister mentioned earlier there are things outside of the Government's control and mentioned planning and the courts system. The Government is actually in control of those spaces because it is in control of the employment of planners. Right now there is a serious dearth of planners in county councils. We do not have a date yet in Cork County Council for the planning application for the flood defence in Midleton that was promised in 2016. That is incredible. The reason there is not enough planners is the councils are not paying enough for them and private companies that are paying more are getting them. An Bord Pleanála has 20,000 homes stuck in its system because it does not have the planners to deal with them.
The Minister of State is new in this role, but he might be able to answer this. Cork County Council identified four engineers it was going to assign to look over the job in Midleton. It applied for funding from the OPW and the Minister of State's predecessor refused to fund that. Will the Minister of State reverse that and fund these engineers to ensure this gets built?
We are way over.
I thank the Deputy. There is a detailed question submitted by Deputy Stanton, so out of respect for him I will deal with the issue of Midleton in depth-----
Twice.
-----when we come to his question. It is out of respect. He put a lot of work into the question and it is something with which I want to deal.
Following on from the comments of my colleague, the Minister, I am in a position to state that there are currently seven flood relief schemes at construction phase. Once completed, they will provide flood protection for nearly 1,800 properties. I refer to the Athlone flood alleviation scheme, the Glashaboy flood relief scheme at Glanmire and Sallybrook, the Morell river management scheme, the Poddle river flood alleviation scheme, the River Mall scheme in Templemore, the Springfield flood relief scheme at Clonlara and the Whitechurch stream flood alleviation scheme. This year alone, we are looking at four key projects: a scheme at Crossmolina, another at King's Island in Limerick, the Morrison's Island river wall and the scheme on the River Poddle, which already commenced construction in 2024. These schemes will provide flood protection to nearly 2,000 properties. The two major flood relief schemes provided-----
The Minister of State will have a chance to come back in but we are way over time.
This is characteristic of the Fine Gael part of the Government. It promises a wall and then, when people ask where it is, it says that three blocks of the wall are in place. The people then say they were told they would get a wall but that there is no wall at the moment. The Minister of State mentioned 2,000 homes being protected by flood defences. There was a report in 2021 which stated that 70,000 homes are in danger of flooding, but the Minister of State is offering protection to 2,000 homes in response. The cost of defending those 70,000 homes would be €2 billion. All I am saying is that the level of effort by the Government is miniscule relative to the size of the crisis. The Minister of State blames an inability to solve issues on planning and the courts. The courts system is also glacial. The reason for this is that it does not have the resources necessary and is managed incorrectly. It could be made faster to allow these decisions to get through the process far more quickly. There are lives at risk here. On that basis, I ask the Minister of State to address the Midleton situation in his responses to both questions.
We are way over time. I ask everyone for co-operation. Deputy Conway-Walsh wishes to come in briefly before the Minister of State.
I wish the Minister of State well in his new job. I am really pleased to hear him talk about the Crossmolina flood relief scheme. He will know that the town of Crossmolina has been waiting for that for almost ten years now. Could he give me an update as to its exact status and when it is going to start?
I will deal with the latter question first. The Crossmolina scheme is subject to planning consent. I will forward a detailed note on it to the Deputy.
To go back to Deputy Tóibín's question, the CFRAM study on tranche 1 is about protecting 80% of properties. Flooding causes great difficulties for people. I know what it is like. I come from a constituency where there has been a large amount of flooding so I am fully aware. However, it is not fair to say that flood schemes are not being put in place. They are. Would we like to see them in place more quickly? Absolutely. There are issues that must be overcome, however. If you are looking for the negative, you will always find it. It is like looking at a jar to see if it is half-full or half-empty. I feel the Deputy always sees it as half-empty. The Deputy is perfectly entitled to make arguments but it is important that he make balanced ones. He should accept and acknowledge the things that are happening. By all means, he may criticise other aspects but he should do so in a balanced way.
57. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform when the infrastructure guidelines will lead to reform within individual Departments in the context of capital projects; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17727/24]
The infrastructure guidelines replace the public spending code. Changes to the public sector spending code were announced early last year. It took until the end of the year before the infrastructure guidelines were published. How long will it be before we see the reforms adopted by the Departments? Most importantly, how will the Minister's Department measure the effectiveness of this change?
I thank the Deputy very much. The infrastructure guidelines were indeed published in December. They had an effective date of 1 January 2024. As a result, they are already in effect. My Department has refreshed the requirements for capital projects in the new infrastructure guidelines, reducing the number of approval stages prior to implementation from five to three and streamlining the requirements for major projects, raising the level of cost at which a project is considered major to €200 million. This allows for projects below this limit to proceed more speedily through the appraisal and evaluation process compared with those of greater scale and complexity. The guidelines also provide clarification regarding the role of Accounting Officers, better reflect the carbon and environment impact of our proposals and reflect changes arising from recommendations put forward by the major projects advisory group. That is just a quick reminder of what they are. They are effective as of the start of this year.
On the Deputy's final point as to when we believe they will be effective, the anecdotal feedback I get from Departments and State agencies is that they are making a difference to the evaluation of projects and the speed at which they move through. As to when we will see the impact they are actually having on the commencement of projects, truthfully it will probably be early next year. It will take some time for this to feed through into projects actually getting the go-ahead to go to tender. With the lead times involved, it will be the early part of next year before we see the difference it is making to the speed at which projects are delivered.
On page 2 of those guidelines, it is stated that it is the responsibility of the Accounting Officer of a Department to ensure that the guidelines are adopted. As the Minister has said, we may not see the changes until next year. With regard to the procedure for delivering capital projects, what flexibilities do Departments have under the new infrastructure guidelines? For instance, can the Minister for housing streamline the four-stage approval process in housing? In housing, layers of dysfunctional bureaucracy are imposed by Government. That has led to less than half of the target number of houses in Mayo being built last year. In practical terms, what are the implications of the new infrastructure guidelines? I am trying to get at how their effectiveness is to be measured. What criteria has the Minister set to let him know whether these guidelines have been a success or whether they need to be changed?
I will look at three factors. The first is whether the projects individual Government Departments decide to go ahead with are still within budget, that is, still in line with the original expectations set for the project. Second, I will consider whether the guidelines have led to an increase in the speed at which decisions are made and projects brought to tender. From my engagement with my officials and with other Departments when we were making these changes, I understand that the improvement in speed that could be gained may only be a matter of several months. However, that is still worth getting if it gets somebody into a home more quickly, a wastewater treatment plant up and running more quickly or a flood relief scheme in place in time and working more quickly. The final factor I will be looking at may go beyond the change in the infrastructure guidelines. I will be considering whether there is an improvement in the number of companies tendering for projects, particularly smaller projects outside of our cities. They are the three things I will be looking at.
Do local authorities have to continue to put forward business cases as to why they need to build, for example, social and affordable housing? The infrastructure guidelines state, "Where programmes of investment are composed of a high number of similar" schemes, as in the case of housing, a strategic assessment can be done all at once. Can local authorities such as Mayo County Council do a single preliminary assessment or business case for all the projects being brought forward in a single year? If so, when will we see that? Is that a difference the guidelines will make?
My understanding is that, if housing projects are very closely related, there is an opportunity to bring forward a single application to the Department of housing. I will have to check that for the Deputy. I will do that. I believe the Department of housing will be eager to avoid cases in which two or three different housing projects offering different forms of housing come under the one application. If they are genuinely three different projects, it would not really be appropriate to group them under a single application. I will check that for the Deputy but I understand that, if projects are related to each other or are of a certain scale, it is possible to bring forward a single application.
I will come back to the Deputy on that.
58. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform the projected expenditure on capital projects for 2025 and 2026 in terms of GNI*; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17726/24]
I thank the Minister for his reply to Question No. 57. I am very interested to see whether what he outlined can be done. We have to do everything we possibly can to increase the number of houses being built and to meet even the low targets that are already there.
I raised the underspend on capital investments since 2021 up to this year. I will now focus on the projected underspend over the next two years. This year, the Minister outlined plans to increase funding by €2.25 billion over three years. What will that mean for the level of investment each year from 2024 to 2026 in terms of GNI* over those three years?
The Deputy asked me about 2025 and 2026. For 2025, at €14.35 billion, the spend will be 4.5% of GNI* and for 2026, with an allocation of €15.45 billion, it will be 4.6% of GNI*. Those are the figures. In fairness to the Deputy, she raised this issue at the very start of questions to me but the answers were under Question No. 58. That is what the figures are.
That is concerning. It comes back to the levels of inflation we have seen. The Minister is saying the Government will continue its capital expenditure, but the answer indicates that will fall short of the level of ambition outlined in the national development plan in 2021. Even with the increase of €2.25 billion over three years that has finally been announced, the underspend will reach approximately €11 billion by the end of 2026. The stability programme update, SPU, was published today, so that figure might have to be adjusted. An additional €250 million was allocated in 2024. Even with the additional funding, the capital budget for this year is still €2.4 billion short.
Will the Minister confirm, on the current projections, that the Government will not meet the 5% of GNI* target this year for the fourth consecutive year? Will he also confirm that it will not reach the 5% target next year? I think he has said already that the Government will not reach it.
Yes, I answered that. We set a target of 5%. We are getting towards that target. We are making progress towards the delivery of it. I will go back to the point I made at the start of my exchange with the Deputy. Looking at the increases in capital expenditure year upon year upon year, between this year and next year there will be an increased spend of €1.2 billion. Capital expenditure for next year will go up by 9.7% versus the previous year. That is three to four times the rate of inflation.
The question for all political parties as we consider the next Dáil, and even as we consider the approaching budget, is whether we believe there should be an overall figure by which the rate of total Government expenditure should grow. I believe there should be an overall figure. In the absence of that figure, we run the risk of spending money we may not have in the future. If we accept the premise of that figure, and if we are to spend more on current expenditure, which we are at present, it means we need to spend a little less on capital expenditure.
The concern I have, which I referred to, is that projects throughout the State are either being delayed or quietly shelved. Communities that have campaigned and waited for years are being left in the dark wondering why projects they thought were agreed and progressing are now not progressing. The only possible conclusion they can come to is that we have not accounted for inflation. People involved in numerous projects across County Mayo, for example, Castlebar Educate Together, Ballinrobe school and several other schools, thought the deals were done and dusted, but now those projects are being delayed or people are not being given the projects they were promised. The Minister, Deputy Foley, visited Castlebar Educate Together in September 2022 and promised the kids there the school was going to be delivered. All these months later, they are still waiting for a situation whereby a site has even been agreed, despite the fact possible sites were displayed. Things are just not adding up for people in communities. That is a problem.
I appreciate that. I am not familiar with the detail on the schools the Deputy referenced. I do not want to do them a disservice. However, no matter how much more money is available to the Government or how much it decides to spend, there will always be a higher demand than there is money available to meet that demand. That will always be the case. Anywhere any Minister goes, there is a demand and need for more schools and Garda stations to be built, and for more investment in our health services. By making additional money available to the Department of Education, which we have over the past two years, we are able to allow more school projects to move ahead. That happened last year and will happen again this year. I will continue to work with the Minister, Deputy Foley, to try to make enough funding available to ensure very important projects move ahead.
I emphasise what I said to the Deputy a number of times this evening: capital expenditure year after year after year has gone up and up and up. It has gone up exponentially versus where we were in 2017.
59. Deputy David Stanton asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform to outline the progress made to date with respect to the Midleton flood relief scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15631/24]
I wish the Minister of State well in his new role. Will he outline what progress has been made to date with respect to the Midleton flood relief scheme and make a statement on the matter? I understand the scheme has five stages. Serious work began on this scheme nine years ago in 2015. I also understand two avenues of planning are available. Will the Minister of State tell me what has been happening up to now?
I thank the Deputy. I know the commitment he has to Midleton and to this project.
I am aware of the devastation caused by flooding to communities and the significant impact on people, families, businesses and communities. As the Deputy said, I visited Midleton in my previous role as Minister of State with responsibility for local government. I intend to visit again shortly in my current role as Minister of State with responsibility for the OPW. I saw the devastation first-hand with the Deputy. Along with Councillor Susan McCarthy, we did a thorough tour of the place and met people.
The catchment flood risk assessment and management, CFRAM, programme provided the Government with the evidence necessary to launch a national programme of 150 additional flood relief schemes in 2018. Major flooding in December 2015 and again in January 2016 were the catalysts to commence work on the design of a flood relief scheme for Midleton before the conclusion of the CFRAM programme, as the Deputy so rightly said, a number of years ago. Cork County Council is leading the delivery of the scheme and in 2017 appointed engineering and environmental consultants. Midleton has proven to be one of the most complex schemes. It has flood risks from four sources: fluvial, tidal, groundwater and pluvial.
The preferred scheme has now been identified with an estimated budget of €50 million, which is three times the estimated budget in 2017. This highlights the scale of the project’s increase in scope. It also highlights that we have designed a scheme that is robust, supported by strong evidence that has the support of the local community, and is future-proofed through being adaptable to climate change scenarios. The preferred option protects 580 properties and can give back flood insurance to the town, which we found out many did not have when we met them on the ground. Following Storm Babet, an assessment of the proposed scheme is being completed, so we can have confidence that we have designed a scheme that can meet the standard of protection required by the insurance industry. The next major step is to seek planning consent. Work is ongoing on the development of the planning design for the scheme.
An assessment of additional works, which could be delivered in advance of the main scheme, is ongoing. A report is being finalised with recommendations for interim and advance works to mitigate against flooding in Midleton. This will be made available to the public when it is completed, which I expect will be very shortly. It should be noted that detailed hydraulic assessment of any scheme is required to ensure it is in compliance with the relevant statutory and regulatory frameworks.
I thank the Minister of State for his response and for his interest to date in visiting the town and surrounding area in his former role. He viewed first-hand the utter devastation that occurred. We were very lucky that no one drowned. If this flooding happened at night-time or the tide had been in, it would have very serious indeed.
Will the Minister of State give some information on when he expects planning permission to be lodged? People would take some comfort if they knew that the second stage of the process was about to happen. I understand an environmental impact assessment, EIA. is also required. Will the Minister of State let me know, now or later, where that is at? Will it serve to delay things further? Will the Minister of State meet, as a matter of urgency, senior officials in Cork County Council, along with his officials in the OPW, to scope this out and drive it forward? There is a sense of a lack of urgency about this matter now. I have raised it almost every week since the floods following Storm Babet almost six months ago.
The people involved need progress. When it rains, people are afraid to go to sleep. It is that serious.
I commit to meeting with the Cork County Council engineers and to going down to Midleton to meet the people of Midleton along with the Deputy and others.
The Deputy referred to the planning side. Following Storm Babet, an assessment of the proposed scheme is under way and involves remodelling to test storm events against preferred options that were identified ahead of Storm Babet. Results show we can be confident we have designed a scheme that can meet the standard of protection. The next steps are to finalise the detailed scheme design and seek planning consent. Work is ongoing on development of planning and design for the scheme. Work on stage 2 with some environmental services, including bats and birds, got under way this winter. Discussions will involve operators of critical infrastructure and landowners whose lands will be needed as part of the scheme. The OPW and Cork County Council have also advanced their consideration of the best route for consent. The decision is due shortly.
There are two main options for planning consent: Part 10 and the Arterial Drainage Act 1945. The potential impact on the programme and delivery of the scheme under each option is being considered before a decision on the form of consent to be adopted. The decision will inform the agreement with some 80 landowners whose lands are required to construct and further the scheme. We will have a final decision over the coming weeks.
I thank the Minister of State for his response and am pleased to hear a decision regarding the planning option will be made in the coming weeks. This is an enormous scheme involving more than 80 landowners, costing more than €50 million and counting. The cost to the people, businesses and homes is much more, emotionally as well. When that happens, your home or business is destroyed and everything you have is gone. Some people could not get insurance. Some were underinsured, which I ask the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, to look at. They were insured to a certain level but the devastation went way beyond that and they were not eligible for the Red Cross funding, which is another issue.
I ask the Minister of State and his officials to meet with council officials as soon as possible and drive on the planning application so it is lodged, giving people some comfort, and to do all he can to get this thing moving. We are worried in case there are challenges to it and it could take forever in the courts. It would be devastating if this happened again.
The estimated time for application for consent between the two is not significantly different. We cannot speed up the process so that is why we need interim measures. We will be looking at some time towards 2025-2026. The decision on the planning consent must consider the risk of additional challenges to the route. That is something I will take up with the officials and that is why it is so important we take these interim measures now.
On the insurance side, the Deputy is well aware the insurance industry cannot rely on the CFRAM maps but the industry has agreed and there is ongoing engagement between the Department of Finance and the industry that the latter will consider, as part of its overall assessment, further flood relief measures that are put in place. I hope to go down there shortly and follow up.
60. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform the extent to which issues are being considered which are most likely to have an impact on improving delivery on the national development plan, with particular reference to specific infrastructure which is now or is likely to become in the near future critical to progress; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15401/24]
This question seeks to ascertain the extent to which the Minister has identified issues likely to impact or impede the rapid development of the various aspects of the national development plan.
I thank the Deputy for his question. We have identified a number of constraints in delivery of the national development plan. To facilitate an exchange with the Deputy, I will pick two. First is the availability of the workers we need to translate spending plans into delivery of homes and projects and the labour and skills shortages in our economy. We are looking to address that through progress being made in the Department of further and higher education in relation to apprenticeship plans. While progress there will always take time, it is the best chance we have to ensure we have the workers we need to deliver the projects we need. The second issue, with which the Deputy will be familiar and which has been a real challenge, is the impact of inflation on the delivery of important projects. We made a number of changes to the level of capital we are making available to Departments in the coming years and to our public sector frameworks for contractors and professionals to deal with the risks created by inflation. With a little bit of good luck, I hope in the time ahead to begin to see those inflationary pressures decrease to a lower level than they have been at in recent years. Those two are important challenges in the delivery of the national development plan.
I thank the Minister for that reply. Are they the most important challenges or are there others in the wings that might have a similar impact? Is the Minister certain adequate progress has been made in dealing with the issues to which he referred?
I would have to identity inflation as the biggest challenge we have faced, given the cost of raw materials we need to deliver homes has increased in the way it has, with a knock-on effect on many buildings our country expects us to deliver. That, by some way, has been the biggest challenge we will have had in recent years. While I am hopeful it will improve, we should not be naive in assuming improvement will happen quickly. It will take time to begin to see the cost of building projects stabilise. That is why we have made additional capital funding available across this year and the next two years. It is also why we have made changes, as I mentioned to the Deputy earlier, in how we agree the delivery of important projects with developers and service professionals like architects.
I ask the degree to which the Minister's Department, or any other Department, is in a position to drill down into the causes of inflation and where it most seriously impacts negatively on the work the Minister is trying to do? Are there positive signs it is being controlled? In line with the progress in other jurisdictions, will the Government do something similar?
We are in a position to drill down into it. Unfortunately, the answer has been both simple and very difficult. The cost of inputs has gone up so much, including wood, steel and other things we needed in recent years to turn our money into projects the country wants. It has got far more expensive to build. In terms of indications that it is beginning to improve, at this point any evidence I have is anecdotal from talking to officials about delivery of projects. I have received anecdotal feedback that tendering processes are having more companies coming to participate in them. That is a good sign. How do we compare with what is happening in other jurisdictions? In truth, we compare favourably. We reason we do so is that we are in a position to invest more to offset the impact of some of these issues. The best example of this is where we are in housing, a big feature in the questions and answers we have had this evening. We are one of the few countries in Europe building more home this year than last.
61. Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform when the necessary legislative amendments to facilitate an extension of the mandatory age of retirement for uniformed services up to the age of 62 years to include full-time and retained fire service personnel will be ready; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17788/24]
Can I find out the timeline for the necessary legislative amendments to facilitate an extension of the mandatory age of retirement? Specifically, I am asking about retained fire service personnel to the age of 62 years. I am really asking about John Molloy, who is the station officer in Dunleer. Unfortunately or fortunately, he will turn 60 on 24 May. The plan is to introduce this and I am trying to make sure Mr. Molloy is not impacted and that Dunleer fire station is not impacted, because it has a very minimal crew at this point. He also tells me that, in relation to pension changes, it would not impact on him because he started on a previous pension scheme.
If it would not impact on him, I would hope that it would not actually make too much difference to him regardless of when we pass the legislation. In any event the news is good. We nearly have the legislation drafted and we are working away on it. It will definitely be passed this year. We are going to work hard to make sure it is passed by the summer.
That is good but the problem is this man turns 60 on 24 May. Is it possible to get a circular or something between the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, and the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, so we could get this sorted?
I am not 100% sure. A moment ago he was not going to be affected by it and now he needs a circular-----
No, he is not going to be affected in his pension.
Okay. Right. In any event we will not be able to deal with this via a circular. We need to change the legislation in relation to it, whether it be for the Deputy's constituent or for all of the people who are affected by it. There has been widespread welcome for what we are trying to do here, which is recognising that people can work for longer. They are fitter, healthier and they are able to perform roles that many years ago we would not have thought possible. They can do it now and we will try to get this change made as soon as we can.
