May I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Geoghegan-Quinn, for her extensive and lengthy presentation here this afternoon which was very valuable because the National Development Plan interests every thinking person in the country and is of extreme importance. It is probably the most significant and important measure which will affect the livelihood, the wellbeing and, of course, the economy and the infrastructure of this country this century and, of course, into the next century. The Minister, in explaining, outlining and giving an analysis of the plan, also engaged in an eloquent rebuttal of many of the criticisms of the plan which surfaced both from the time the process got under way and also following the publication of the plan. I listened with interest to what she had to say and her arguments, although they had merit, nevertheless will not deter me from making those criticisms and from engaging in a counter-rebuttal of many of the points which she made.
At the outset I would like to express my extreme disappointment that the National Development Plan, 1989-93, was not debated in the Houses of the Oireachtas prior to its submission to Brussels. It would have been possible to do this if the Government had wished it to be so and it would have meant that Members of the Dáil and Seanad from all sides could have given a valuable insight and input into the plan and, as such, when it was presented to the Commission in Brussels it would have been more truly democratic. I intend to make the argument that, in fact, it has failed in the area of being truly democratic and truly reflective of all strands of public opinion in this country and, as such, this gives cause for concern.
I think the Minister must answer an important question. She did advert to it in her speech but I would like her, if she is responding to this debate, to say if at this stage there is any room for dissent, any room for constructively and rationally voiced inputs, any room for change or amendments or improvements. She did say that these kinds of inputs would be listened to, but I just wonder at this stage if they would actually affect issues such as the timing of the implementation of any particular measures in any special region. Will such inputs be invited? There is an important distinction to be made between saying we will take inputs and we will accept criticisms or constructive suggestions, but will such be invited by public advertisements in the national press and will they be actively sought? I think it is important to make that distinction.
I am concerned that there would be an attempt at giving a veneer of democracy to an exercise that, in my view and in the view of my party, has lacked real democratic input from day one. Many people who care about local democracy and who believe in the necessity of making the regions active and dynamic and working feel that this Government have made a mockery of local democracy in the manner in which they have dealt with the National Development Plan which has now been submitted to Brussels.
Seven regional working parties and advisory groups were set up and it emerged this week that the national plan was completed and forwarded to Brussels incorporating proposed regional plans prior to some of these seven regions actually submitting their final reports. The Minister in her speech refers to the fact that the working groups "had essentially completed their reports." I would like to know what "essentially" means. Have they completed their reports or have they not and were these reports part of the submission that was finally submitted to Brussels? I think there should be no pussy-footing on this issue. I want a plain and unequivocal answer as to whether this has been the case.
We urgently need informed debate, and to do this would have been so helpful to everybody, particularly people in the regions, if they had got the reports of the regional groups and if they had been able to debate them in their local fora, be that their local council, the chamber of commerce or any other area where people congregate to debate infrastructural requirements and something as important and as significant as this national plan.
As an illustration of what has happened I would refer to the fact that at this month's meeting of Waterford City Council the national plan came up for discussion. In fact, due to pressure of business we adjourned the discussion on it until next month, but we were going to do this in the context of not having the final report of the working groups laid before us for debate. This concerned our area. This was about out infrastructure, this was about major projects which were going to receive funding in our region and I think it is only a most basic requirement that the fruits of the advisory groups and of the working parties should be laid before the local authority. I am extremely disappointed that this has not been the case.
I would ask the Minister when she is replying to indicate if these final reports from the working groups will ever see the light of day, will they be published and will we have an opportunity to digest them even at this very late hour.
I think it is important at this stage to make a plea for the regions. The Minister said that when my party was in Coalition Government it did very little in this area. I do not intend to develop that particular point, but I think we did not quite have the opportunity which the Minister's Government have to involve the regions in such a valuable and important exercise. I am sure they regret now that they abolished the regional development organisations which could have been so very valuable indeed in giving data and inputs and information when establishing regional and local priorities. These regional development organisations had a tremendous wealth of expertise and information and indeed statistical data garnered over a long period of time. It seems a very great pity that their premature demise meant that they did not have the significant and important inputs which would have helped this National Development Plan.
I may be accused of being provocative, but I am going to proceed in any event. The effectiveness of regional development programmes must involve a strengthening of the role of the local authorities. I am going to briefly advert to Denmark, which currently earns the second highest national output per head of population in the EC after Luxembourg. I praise the fact that Denmark has followed the pattern of administrative decentralisation and I would wish to see such a move in progress here. I do feel that we missed an opportunity to do this. In fact, Denmark and its recovery from fiscal problems is often held up as an example to us here in Ireland. What they have done with their local government and regional structures could be similarly held up as an example and we could well examine what they have done and seek to emulate it.
The programme of change in Denmark was introduced on a gradual basis throughout the seventies. It began with boundary changes and new local authorities in April 1970. There are now 273 local authorities and 14 regional authorities for a country with a population of just over five million and where the authorities below the level of central Government levy and collect about one-third of all public revenue.
The question for Ireland might well be whether or not the advocates of balanced local and regional development are willing to accept the reality of a fundamental restructuring of public revenue as well as of public expenditure. In other words, will the people accept the return of broadly based taxing power to the local authorities? All of these issues were very meaningful in the context of our EC Structural Funds. There should have been public debate about this at the time and we should have moved in the direction of giving more autonomy and power, dignity and status to the regions, who craved this.
It is all very well for the Minister to talk about the taskforce and the excellent relations between the taskforce on the one hand and the Taoiseach and the Commission and the Ministers and everybody involved in the National Development Plan. What about the grassroots? What about where it all begins? Why were they not given more real ability to take part in this tremendous debate?
I was really rather sad to see a list of local communities in, I think, the Dublin area who has put together an alternative set of priorities and proposals to the National Development Plan, and who published their report recently. I am not cynical. I do respect the rights of groups of people to come forward. However, I really did feel that in this event it was a classic demonstration of the powerlessness of people. They had, in fact, been reduced to this powerlessness by the unthinking centralised attitude of the current Administration who virtually ignored the wishes of such groups and such people to come forward.
The publication of this plan has been a major disappointment to such groups of people. The European aspiration of getting local communities to identify their own priorities and involving them in the planning process has been neutralised by what I believe to be an arrogant attitude on the part of Government, a Government who have little faith in and no commitment to local democracy, as evidenced by the structures under which this plan proceeded. The failure of the Government to provide within the plan the establishment of both local and regional monitoring mechanisms, such as those proposed by my party, Fine Gael, to review the progress of the plan and to assess whether its specific objectives are being attained is a clear indicator that this Government have little faith in their own proposals and are unwilling to be truly accountable both locally and nationally for their implementation.
The manner in which the Government have dealt with the national plan in the past two weeks has confirmed all the worries raised by Fine Gael and concerns expressed in the months leading up to the publication of the plan were clearly proved to be correct. It is quite obvious that the consultative exercise the Government are engaged in has been merely a cosmetic affair to try to convince the Commission that the plan genuinely contains a regional input. I know the Minister explained that in the language of the plan the word "region" means Ireland as one region, but nevertheless a sensitive, caring Government would have ensured a greater regional input. I think it is hiding behind words, it is a convenience and it is an excuse to refer to the fact that the language of the various documents surrounding it when they use "regional" in fact mean the national Government because Ireland is a region.
I am surprised that a party like Fianna Fáil, who pride themselves on their strong grassroots affiliations, would have been so insensitive to the regions. I have heard criticisms voiced and whispered from Fianna Fáil public representatives at local level who are dismayed and who dislike the fact that they have been made to appear so compliant at local level and that their inputs have largely been ignored.
From discussions I have had with many of those who have been involved in some of the regional groupings, I know there is a great feeling of frustration and annoyance at the manner in which they have been treated and their contribution at regional level disregarded. We must remember that very many of these people, members of the Confederation of Irish Industry and the chambers of commerce and all the other worthy groupings who were considered for invitation to be on the advisory groups and the working parties gave up their time freely and voluntarily. They were enthusiastic, they were committed, they wished to make meaningful inputs to the plan, but even many of them at this stage feel that it was largely a cosmetic exercise and something of a veneer.
The plan as published does not contain any real new contribution of Government policy to the development of our economy and it fails to provide a basis for tackling the major problems of unemployment and emigration with which we are confronted. In its central analysis the plan acknowledges that "the most significant reason for high Irish transport costs is the deficient state of the national roads and the access roads to the principal ports and airports". The Government in the plan state that to bring our road network up to European standards an investment of £3.27 billion is required. Over the five-year programme period from 1989 to 1993 the plan provides for an expenditure only of £755 million for the national road network and that is only 23 per cent of the needs to be met by the end of the Government's projected programme.
It is clear therefore that, on the basis of the Government's own figures, major road infrastructural improvements required to enable us to compete on equal terms within a Single European Market will not be completed this side of the year 2000. While I recognise the fact that certain major routes were specifically mentioned by name, I feel there is an obsessive secrecy about letting everybody know what the roads priority is and I contend that this secrecy and this unwillingness, stated unwillingness, by the Minister for the Environment to show his hand on this is directly related to the economic points I have just made about the funding.
An essential prerequisite to the obtaining of Community funding is the principle of additionality, that is, funds coming from Europe cannot be used as a substitute for domestic expenditure. It appears from the detail of the roads programme that the Government may have considerable difficulties with the European Commission in this area in the context of the inadequate provisions made for roads, whereas the State's own contribution to national roads from capital expenditure will be a sum of £76.2 million in 1989 under the terms of the plan. In the year 1990 it reduces to a sum of £39.4 million; in the year 1991, it will be a sum of £40 million; in 1992, it will be £43.9 million; and in 1993, £49.2 million. In each of those years it is projected that increased sums for road building will come from the European Regional Development Fund and, having regard to the reduced national contribution for national roads from the year 1990 onwards, considerable doubt must arise as to whether the level of funding the Government are seeking for road building from the European Community will be made available to us. I would like the Minister to expand on those points when she is replying to the debate.
While the plan states one of its objectives to be "to stimulate the growth needed to reduce unemployment", it contains no specific details of any Government provision to tackle the problems of youth unemployment or long-term unemployment. No attempt is made to compare the effects on employment of economic activity which may result from different types of investment options.
I have already referred to the inadequacies of the roads programme. Even if we stay within the parameters of the Government's projected financial contribution to the structural programme, it is possible by a rearranging of allocations to increase the potential funds that could come from Europe and which would contribute to tackling employment problems. For example, if one-third of the State moneys allocated to each of the years 1989 to 1993 for FÁS temporary employment schemes were taken out of that subhead and put into the national roads programme the resultant addition of £80 million to that programme would create the potential of an additional £240 million being made available for roads from the Regional Fund. This would only result in a reduction from the European Community Social Fund contribution of some £13 million. Not only would this make a further contribution towards bringing our road infrastructure up to the necessary standard; it would be an investment in the creation of real jobs as opposed to temporary employment schemes, which we all know have certain major disadvantages and which are largely a palliative exercise.
The roads proposal cannot be left without commenting on the extraordinary refusal of the Government still to publish its blueprint for road development, and I have already referred to this. As I have said, it is part of the obsessive secrecy which has surrounded the whole process and I hope that the Minister can come clean on it at the conclusion of this debate. People want to know. For example, in the south-east and in Waterford we are planning major port development and it is vital for us to know about funding for routes to and from the port to enable the development to have any real meaning in infrastructural terms. Whereas the plan states the projected capital expenditure on roads programmes from 1989 to 1993 and reveals some details of the major road infrastructural works to be undertaken, the exact specifics for proposed roadworks in each of the seven regions still remain a secret. We are entitled to know. I see no valid reason why there should be such secrecy about something so vital, so necessary and so unworthy of keeping secrets about. It seems the Government believe that in some way the security of the State might be endangered if the roads plans are revealed. The blueprint for road development should immediately be published and should have been published last autumn, when I believe it was finalished in the Department of the Environment.
I would like to make some references to the enormous gaps that occur in the plan with reference to environmental issues and problems. It does give a tacit recognition to the protection and conservation of the physical environment as being "an essential ingredient of the Irish tourism product", but it fails to acknowledge the essential need for a clean environment for all of us who live on this island. This notion of equating environmental improvement with tourism, quite frankly, makes me feel ill. In the first instance, it is important that we tackle all our environmental problems on the basis that we, the Irish people, who live here all the time want to do so in a clean, healthy, environmentally satisfactory way.
I am very disappointed that the emphasis in the plan should be on tourism rather than on the importance of the clean environment for its own sake, Whereas European Community legislation requires environmental impact assessment reports to be prepared for major development proposals, such as the building of pharmaceutical or chemical plants, this Government still do not realise that many local authorities sadly lack the necessary expetise to validate and adjudicate on environmental assessment reports when they come before them. Of course, this was raised and debated very strongly indeed in relation to the pharmaceutical plant in east Cork.
Although the plan refers to the fact that Dublin suffers an air pollution problem, no mention is made as to what steps the Government propose taking to tackle the serious smog problem experienced in Dublin. Those of us who visit Dublin, because we must do so, are in no doubt as to the reality of the smog and its deleterious effects on the health and wellbeing of many people, particularly the elderly and those with allergy and chest conditions. The current approach adopted by the Minister for the Environment means that it will take decades before the problem is resolved.
The need to tackle inner-city problems is acknowledged in the plan, but no specific proposals are contained in it to do anything about this problem, although considerable details on this appear to be contained in the Dublin consultants' report, which leaked report got into the press and gave all of us who are interested in this some idea of the actual, as opposed to the presentational, aspects of the national plan.
The question must be asked; is this a national development plan? Is it, as has been stated by the Taoiseach, a detailed multi-annual development budget? We in Fine Gael believe it to be a predictable, pedestrian, unimaginative projection of the public capital programme over the years 1989 to 1993 involving £3.8 billion of expenditure by public and local bodies in this country, £3.7 billion of projected or expected expenditure from EC Structural Funds and the expectation of £2.1 billion of expenditure from the private sector. In fact, the expenditure as set out in this document implies a more or less static level of capital expenditure by the State or public bodies at around the amount provided for this year. In reality it implies a reduction in real terms in the level of the State's contribution to capital formation over the five years. The projected increases come from the EC Structural Funds and from the private sector and, therefore, the plan does not incorporate any Government initiatives or fresh thinking of a developmental nature.
I would like to make reference to the area of jobs and employment, which is surely perhaps the most pressing problem which we are confronting. The Government project a gross increase in jobs available in Ireland over the five years of between 29,000 and 35,000 per annum. There is an in-built assumption in this, there is an acceptance that the present high levels of emigration will continue. This is assumed and built into the plan, and it horrifies me to think that this is the case. There is also an expectation of a continuance of a high level of unemployment.
The most recently published unemployment figures for all 12 member states, based on an internationally recognised standard definition, relate to April 1987. These show that Ireland has an unemployment rate of 19.4 per cent, which is significantly more than six times that of the country with lowest unemployment, that is, Luxembourg, at 3.1 per cent. Ireland's unemployment is not far short of twice that of the EC average and surely the plan must indicate more clearly what it is going to do on the jobs front and how it is going to proceed.
I would like to make a brief reference to my own area of the south-east and, in particular, Waterford. I urge the Minister and those in her Department to take careful note of the Waterford Economic Board's commissioned report by Reid, McHugh and partners, which sets the priorities for Waterford and which will be presented to the Commission in Brussels, I understand, at some future date. Much of what is in that report has, I hope, formed part of the proposals which have gone to Brussels already because they would have been part of the working group and the advisory groups' inputs.
I am pleased to see that the National Development Plan recognises that the port of Waterford is of significance and that our airport, which is the only such regional airport in the south-east, is to be considered for funding. I am also pleased to see mention of development of educational facilities, in particular third-level educational facilities, and to technology parks. That concept of a technology park appears to becoming more and more diffuse and I am concerned about that. I have noticed a certain change in language surrounding it; it is now being referred to as a technology complex and there are certain suggestions that elements of it might surface in, for example, Wexford or Kilkenny.
We need a technology park in the south-east and the best possible place to site it is in Waterford where we have a third level facility, the regional college in which is the biggest regional college in the country and the one giving the most number of degrees and diplomas to students. It has the highest growth level and the obvious logical place to site a technology park is in Waterford city, the capital of the south-east region. I would be very interested to hear what the Minister has to say when she comments on the debate here.
One of the things we need to know — I have mentioned it already — is which roads in our area will receive funding under this plan. We have a £15 million port development project which has gone to Brussels and quite obviously we need to ensure that the roads servicing this port are up to standard and will take the heavy burden of traffic which they must undoubtedly bear. I understand why Governments, and indeed bureaucrats, do not like getting into specifics; it rather ties the hands and in the context of a Euro election I suspect — and I hope I am proved wrong — that certain announcements about roads and certain specifics like that might just be made gradually, dripped out over a period in the run-up to the European election. I hate to see politics having something to do with something as important as the National Development Plan and I hope the Minister will indicate that there will be an announcement or, indeed, no announcement perhaps until after the European elections to allay my, perhaps unkind, suspicions in that area.
I know the Minister, coming from the west, would be interested to know that Comhdháil na hOileán, the Federation of Islands, have expressed their deep unhappiness about what they consider to be brief, vague and ambiguous references to off shore islands in the National Development Plan, which has been submitted to the Commission. Comhdháil na hOileán stated that they just got a mere one mention in subsection (5) of the plan, covering Galway, Mayo and Roscommon, and that it virtually ignores the tourist potential of the islands in this region and the fact that the Government have a commitment to their populace. I will leave it to other members of the Fine Gael Seanad group to take up this issue, Members who come from the west, and who can perhaps more adequately than I, voice the obvious dismay and unhappiness of Comhdháil na hOileán on this ignoring of their vital contribution to tourism.
The Minister referred to the Community support framework and I was interested in getting the information on that. There is a case to be made for explaining more to the people what will happen now that the plan has been published and, of course, submitted to Brussels. Everybody should know what the Community support framework is, they should be aware of it and they should know how it will operate. My understanding is that when the development plan is submitted to the EC Commission, the Commission will draw up the Community support framework in consultation with the Irish authorities and the Minister has dealt with that in her contribution. The system will indicate the level of assistance which will be available from the Structural Funds.
Those people who have, in fact, inserted particular programmes and plans into various elements want to know how soon they will have an indication as to whether their particular project will be funded. Many of them have invested large sums of money in obtaining consultants' reports and in laying very detailed specifications before the advisory groups and the working parties. They are all eagerly and anxiously looking to Government and Brussels, wondering how speedily they will get a response as to whether their particular projects will be favoured with funding so that they can harness their dreams to reality or go away and lick their wounds and think of something else. Basically it amounts to that. People are entitled to know, not necessarily the answer at this stage, but at least when the answers will be forthcoming. That is extremely important.
I think I have just about used up my quota of time. I will end by saying that I do not make my criticisms in any churlish or negative fashion. I want to be constructive. My party recognise the significance and the importance of this particular development, but the plan is short on substantive detail and there is not need for the obsessive secrecy about which I have spoken. I look forward to hearing what other speakers have to say about this. I am sorry that the worries and the concerns of the Fine Gael Party have, in fact, been justified, as I have pointed out.
There is one other thing I would like to have answered in the reply to the debate, that is, in the monitoring and follow-up groups, will those who took part in what I consider a sham consultative process be given any role to play in the monitoring situation, or who is it envisaged will be involved in that? I think the Minister said it was a bit too early to say, but even at this stage some indication would be useful and helpful. I thank the Minister and conclude what I wish to say.
