Deputy Roche was in possession. The Deputy has 11 minutes remaining of the time allotted to him.
Private Members' Business. - Economic Development Bill, 1989: Second Stage (Resumed).
Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
In my contribution last evening I dealt with specific points, in the main, with shortcomings arising from Deputy John Bruton's Bill. I made the general point that the Bill had set itself a very ambitious objective, being designed as an integrated set of legislative measures to prepare our economy for the Single European Market and that it had failed, in a spectacular fashion, to fulfil any of those objectives.
As I said last evening, it strikes me that the Bill, rather than being an integrated, well thought-out or workable set of proposals, is rather a mish mash of proposals. I described it last evening as the product of a very fertile brain — I give Deputy Bruton credit for that — who found himself with an idle moment and a dictaphone in his possession. I made the point that progress has been recorded in areas touched on——
The Deputy must like that line seeing that he is repeating it so often.
It has a certain ring of truth about it.
The Deputy's dictaphone got stuck at that point last evening so there was an action replay.
An action replay. As both Deputies were absent last evening and as the report of what I said last evening is not available, I am making available to them a potted version or summary of it.
I have read the Deputy's speech in full.
I am glad. Then the Deputy may address himself to some of the points I raised. I made the point that progress has been recorded in areas touched on in the proposals, that the proposals in this Bill on education, so far as they go, have either been addressed or are being addressed. This was more than amply illustrated last evening by the Minister for Education in her very thorough contribution. No doubt the Deputy has also read that and will address the points she made then.
I suggested that the proposals in section 2 relating to the Central Bank, to say the least, were very questionable. In his contribution on this Bill, the Minister for Finance questioned the wisdom of isolating a single objective in particular for the Central Bank. I wholeheartedly endorse his questioning of that. As the Central Bank is already charged with the control of credit to secure the general welfare of people as a whole, I wonder whether Deputy Bruton's proposals to not illustrate a blind spot in his perception of the appropriate role of the Central Bank.
The provisions on physical planning would seem, on the surface, to have at least some superficial attractiveness. I indicated last evening that I too feel a certain degree of frustration at the delays that can inevitably occur in the planning process. I see some merit in speeding up the planning process, in particular when industrial development or job creation is involved. However, as the Minister for the Environment pointed out in the course of his contribution, there is a balance to be struck here. This balance seems to me to be missing from these proposals. Nonetheless the proposals, in that they do engender discussions on this point, are welcome.
The provisions of section 7 seem entirely wrong-headed. As we have already an Oireachtas Joint Committee on EC Legislation preparing further endless reports which will inevitably gather dust on the Library shelves, this does not seem to me to be a proposal with merit in it. We are a great nation for producing reports. Our biggest problem is that, while we generate endless reports, very seldom do we generate sufficient action on them.
The consultation procedure, in the context of the plan which has just been submitted to the EC and under which senior Ministers and Secretaries have been put in direct contact with the Commissioners and Directors General in Brussels, seems to be a more valuable manner of expending time and energy than any of the proposals put forward in this regard by Deputy Bruton.
Perhaps the most wrong-headed aspect of the Bill is the set of provisions extending on an ad hoc basis the range of taxation incentives. I know Deputy Bruton appreciates as well as the rest of us in this House that as hoc-ery has been the curse of our taxation system. We have extended tax incentives over the years willy nilly, both at central and local government levels, when we operated the rates. This has been the downfall of any national effort to broaden the tax base or create a reasonable tax base. As I have said, these proposals seem to me to be wrong-headed and to constitute an additional degree of ad hoc-ery. I do not believe that Deputy Bruton seriously believes they will solve any of the problems we face with regard to taxation.
Had Deputy Bruton produced a realistic set of proposals he would have had a much greater measure of support from this side of the House. The proposals in this Bill are not realistic. They simply do not ring true. Realistic policies have been proposed and are being implemented by the Government since assuming office in 1987. There is a degree of recognition of the fact right across the nation. There is even a degree of recognition and realisation that that is the case on the benches opposite.
The economic recovery policy put in place by the Taoiseach and his Ministers has put this nation not alone on the road to recovery but has laid for us the real, sound foundations on which we can accelerate the national effort up to 1992. The annual report of the European Commission recognises this realism and stresses the continuing importance of the process of budgetary adjustment which the Government have operated since assuming office. It stresses the importance of the stabilisation of the debt/GDP ratio and the continuation of the stabilisation efforts. It stresses the need for a continuing reduction in the Exchequer borrowing requirement. Through these policies this Government have achieved a remarkable improvement in the public finances. The debt/GDP ratio has been stabilised and borrowing much reduced. The fruits of these achievements are there to be seen.
For example, we have now lower interest rates than our neighbours. As I said in this House on a previous occasion, had anybody written in any examination, in any economics examination, in any institution in this country five years ago that we could have interest rates five or six percentage points below those in Britain, undoubtedly the student in question would have failed that examination because that would have been contrary to conventional wisdom. Yet that has been achieved, the benefits are there and are very real. We have lower levels of inflation and the Government are making very real efforts to battle with the external factors which would tend to raise the level of inflation. In that the Government can demand and expect the support of all Members of this House.
More importantly than those two features, there is a marked resurgence of national confidence. The word "buzz" is much used to describe our economy at present; there is a real buzz there. It is obvious a feeling of national self-confidence is being regenerated. That is a far more realistic basis on which to face the rigours of 1992 than anything contained in this Bill. An improvement in the rate of growth in our economy is there and is visible.
Other issues remain to be addressed, for example, the plight of the unemployed and the dreadful haemorrhage of emigration. In a nutshell, this Government have already achieved what previous Governments failed in a spectacular fashion to achieve.
If we are to prepare ourselves for 1992 we can do so effectively only on the basis of realistic policies. Those policies are in place. The next step is the implementation of the proposals contained in the National Development Plan 1989-1993 recently published by the Government, which has been submitted to Brussels and which we have every indication has been accepted by Brussels; certainly it has been accepted with much more enthusiasm there than by the benches opposite.
Deputy Bruton's proposals, by and large, are interesting debating points and that only; they go no further than being interesting debating points. They are not in any sense imbued with the realism this nation needs at present. For that reason it is my contention that they must fail.
I see nothing in these proposals to commend them. On that basis alone the discussion on them probably has gone far enough. I have nothing further to say on them; they have little to commend them. I have no doubt that the House will not be supporting them.
It gives me great pleasure to participate in this debate. Deputy John Bruton deserves the congratulations of all of us in this House for raising a series of very important matters which need to be confronted in the context of providing an integrated set of legislative measures to prepare the economy for the Single European Act. Indeed Deputy Bruton had remarkable foresight in that this Bill was brought before the House prior to the Government's so-called National Development Plan 1989-1993, being published. This Bill anticipated to a remarkable degree the omissions from that plan by the Government and their total failure to confront many issues of vital importance in the context of the Single European Market of which we will form a part after 1992. It is my intention in addressing the Bill to deal specifically with some of the aspects which fall within the environmental area and in doing so to address some of the major difficulties we have with the plan.
Section 12 of the Bill before the House provides for the Minister, in conjunction with the Minister for Finance, to make a report to both Houses of the Oireachtas on or before 30 June next on the feasibility of establishing a number of regional development authorities covering the entire country to prepare, implement and monitor development plans for each region in the context of assistance being received for plans from the Structural Funds of the European Communities.
The National Development Plan as published does not contain any indication as to what mechanisms are going to be put in place within the seven designated regions to monitor the use of EC Structural Funds or to ensure that there is any democratic accountability for the manner in which funds are used and to assess during the lifetime of the plan whether specific economic or environmental objectives are being achieved. The need to provide within each of the seven regions for an authority who can keep a watchdog brief over what is being done in this area, who can participate in democratic decision making and provide a forum for ongoing regional input over the four or five years of the plan is of vital necessity. Fine Gael in their document on an economic accord for 1992 propose the establishment of seven regional development authorities and also seek to confer on local authorities an annual role in monitoring the effective implementation of EC structural programmes within their own areas.
It appears from the plan that the Government do not intend to allow a regional monitoring system to come into place. They established seven working and advisory groups to prepare operational programmes for the seven designated regions and indeed the plan purports, at the back of it, to set out plans for each of the seven regions. What we discovered from other sources during the course of last week's debate in this House on the EC structural programme is that the seven designated regional programmes contained in the National Development Plan do not reflect final reports and recommendations made by the seven regional working or advisory groups. It has become quite clear that the Government have, in the way they have dealt with the National Development Plan which they have submitted to Brussels, made a mockery of local democracy. Having set up seven regional working parties and advisory groups it emerged last week that not a single one of those working groups had submitted a final report to Government before the National Development Plan was sent to Brussels. Five working groups submitted final reports a week or two after the Government sent the plan to Brussels. We were told in a written reply from the Minister for Finance in the Dáil last Wednesday that two working groups had still not submitted a final report.
In the context of what is happening in the Dublin region there is even more extraordinary confusion. Last August the Government appointed consultants to prepare a report on the Dublin region. This report was commissioned at an expense of £300,000 to the taxpayer and was to be completed by 31 December 1988. At the end of January the Minister for Finance advised the Dáil that the Dublin report would be completed in early March. Last Wednesday the Minister for Finance stated that the Dublin report would not be completed until later this month. On Thursday in this House the Taoiseach seriously misled the Dáil by stating that the Dublin consultants had not yet reported, that their report had not been commissioned by the Government but by the Dublin local authorities and implied that the Dublin local authorities were at fault for the delay in the completion of the report. On Tuesday this week I invited the Taoiseach to correct the record of the House on the basis that he was mistaken when he made that statement on the Order of Business in the Dáil last Thursday. The Taoiseach declined to respond. On Friday of last week, the last day of the debate in this House on the Structural Fund, proposals the Government have submitted to Brussels, The Irish Times published what it stated to be the final version of the Dublin consultants' report. The Irish Times stated that that report had now gone to Brussels. The Department of Finance issued a statement last Friday evening saying that the Dublin consultants' report was not finalised and had not gone to Brussels.
I do not think, in the context of the speakers who have spoken in this debate on Deputy Bruton's Economic Development Bill both yesterday and this evening, that Government Deputies should be patting themselves on the back for the manner in which the Government are dealing with the whole question of 1992 and their submissions on the National Development Plan. In the context of each of the seven regions, I call on the Government to publish the final reports submitted by the regional and advisory groups so that in the next few weeks we can truly have a very real assessment and considered and informed debate as to what should form part and parcel of the regional programmes.
I call on the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance to clarify the position with regard to the Dublin plan. Does the publication in The Irish Times last Friday accurately reflect the final report of what is proposed for the Dublin region? If it does reflect what is finally proposed for the Dublin region why is it that in a whole series of areas it seriously digresses from what is purported to be the plan for the Dublin region as contained in the National Development Plan?. Has the consultants' report not been published because the Taoiseach's Department have put the consultants for the Dublin region under pressure to amend their draft of the final plan which was published in The Irish Times last Friday so that their recommendations will now coincide with what is in the National Development Plan?? Are these consultants being forced to reassess their independent view of what is required to ensure that regional funds are used to the maximum possible benefit for the Dublin region? Are they being required to change their plan to conform to the Department of Finance view as to what is required?
The Minister for the Environment in his contribution this evening on a matter which is of relevance to the development of Dublin, the budget debate, made reference in that debate to the Custom House Docks Development Authority. He referred to the fact that the Authority are now acting as development agent on behalf of the Minister for Education for the national sports centre which involves acquiring land, some of it from non-statutory bodies, on the Customs House Docks site. It appears that as we stand today in this House the Government are still proceeding with plans to provide a national sports centre on the Customs House Docks site despite the fact that the Dublin consultants' final report, as published in The Irish Times on 14 April 1989, said that the proposed national indoor sports stadium for Dublin's dockland was economically unviable and should not be included in the plan submitted to Brussels.
Are the Government proceeding with this national sports centre? Are the consultants' views being taken seriously or not? Will the consultants' report be published? Will the Dublin local authorities, democratically elected to represent the people of Dublin, have sight of that report? Will Members of this House have sight of that report and sub-regional group reports, to assess whether the plan that has gone to Brussels meets the needs of the individual regions, as they are viewed by the people who live within those regions, and as they have been prepared in consultation with local communities in those regions?
It is quite clear that this Government do not wish their plans to be under scrutiny, that they have ignored a great deal of work being done by many individuals with great expertise in the seven designated regions. They appear to be intent on wasting the taxpayers' money on a Dublin consultants' report which they are now choosing either to ignore or to force the consultants to reconstruct. If at this stage this Government have made a proposal to Brussels in this way, I do not believe they can be trusted over the next four years to apply EC Regional Funds. That is why we need the type of regional development authorities that are provided for in section 12 of Deputy Bruton's Bill.
If the Government vote against that proposal they are voting against democracy, they are voting against accountability and they are voting against placing themselves under the glare of public monitoring to ensure that the plan and the objectives as set out are properly operating. If the Government truly believe that the plan as submitted to Brussels is going to work, if they truly believe that the objectives as laid out in that plan — limited as they are — can be achieved, they should not be afraid of the spotlight of accountability. They should welcome it because, if they get it right, it would enable them to look for whatever limited applause should be offered by the general public for the fairly limited objectives they have set themselves and, at least, they would be able to say they have achieved those objectives.
This plan envisages covering up what the Government are at and is designed to undermine what is left of local democracy within the various regions throughout the country. I have talked to many of those who have been involved in some of the regional groupings and I know how frustrated and annoyed they feel at the manner in which they have been treated. It is appalling that the Government should apparently intend to deal with this plan as if it is some secret service document that endangers the security of the State. There is a need for regional accountability and there is a need for accountability to the Oireachtas. That is why there is a need to establish the type of special committee that this Bill envisages as an ongoing committee, to involve itself in assessing progress being made on a national level with structural funds.
The previous speaker referred to the fact that we already have a Oireachtas Joint Committee on EC legislation, but it has a formal role simply to look at EC regulations and directives sent out from Brussels and to assess their general implications. The committee have no major role in the area of the economy; they have no major role to assess whether EC funding is being properly spent; they have no major role to determine whether the use of EC funds is contributing to the creation of new jobs; and they have no role to perform to ascertain whether major new infrastructural developments will improve overall the state of our economy and reduce, for example, transport costs. They have no function in any of those areas.
We should have in this House the type of committee this Bill provides for. We should be able to approach 1992 not in the context of the old party political rows where one side of the House deliberately throws up some vague allegations against the other side in the hope of getting a headline in the following morning's newspapers. We should be able in a committee form to sit down and look at the economic impact of the proposals we are implementing under the Structural Fund, to assess whether objectives are being achieved and to agree, across tables, the changes that are necessary as we go through the four years to ensure that our economy benefits to the maximum possible extent from the Single European Market.
The Government should not run scared of that exercise. They should welcome that exercise. They should welcome it in the context of ensuring that this Parliament are working together to get the bases right for this country benefiting to the maximum possible extent from the Single European Market, but the Government do not want to deal with matters that way. They want to keep their cards close to their chest. They do not want to disclose to Members of this House, or to the general public, their intentions and they want to try to place themselves in a position where they can hype up their achievements and give them a credibility they may not deserve.
We are told there is no need for a committee of this nature. One of the functions such a committee could perform is to look at whether the manner in which the Government have allocated domestic capital expenditure, in the context of the National Development Plan, will ensure that we gain to maximum possible extent from the moneys available under EC Structural Funding. The sectoral analysis of the plan acknowledges that the most significant reason for high Irish transport costs is the deficient state of national roads and access roads to the principal ports and airports. If we had a proper road system it has been estimated by the Confederation of Irish Industry that in the region of £300 million a year could be lopped off the transport bill Irish industrialists currently have to pay.
We heard the Minister for the Environment constantly talking about the need for additional funding for road infrastructure. It is my contention that a Dáil committee, as proposed in this Bill, could get the figures right and correct the mistakes the Government have made. In the plan the Government state that in order to bring our national road network up to European standards an investment of £3.27 billion is required. Over the five year period 1989 to 1993 the plan provides for an expenditure of only £755 million for the national road network, that is, only 23 per cent of the needs will be met by the end of the Government's projected programme. It is clear that on the basis of the Government's own figures, major road infrastructural improvements required to enable us to compete on equal terms in the Single European Market, will not be completed this side of the year 2000 and, indeed, may not be completed this side of the year 2020.
An essential prerequisite to obtaining Community funding is the principle of additionality, that is, that funds coming from Europe cannot be used as a substitute for domestic capital expenditure. It appears from the detail of the roads programme that the Government may have considerable difficulties with the European Commission in the context of the inadequate provision made for roads. Whereas the State's own contribution to national roads from capital expenditure will be £76.2 million in 1989, under the terms of the plan, in the year 1990 it reduces to £39.4 million, in 1991 it will be £40 million, in 1992 it will be £43.9 million and in 1993 it will be £49.2 million. In other words, in each of the years it is projected that increased sums for road building will come from the European Regional Development Fund. Having regard to the reduced national contribution for national roads for the years 1990 and onwards, considerable doubts 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.
The plan states that one of its objectives is to stimulate the growth needed to reduce unemployment, but it contains no specific details of any Government provision to tackle the problems of youth unemployment or long-term unemployment. That was referred to last week. Where a Dáil committee of the nature that Deputy Bruton proposes could play a role, is in comparing the effects on employment of different economic activity which may result from different types of investment options. We do not know why the Government have opted for one type of investment option with regard to capital expenditure rather than another or why particular sums have been allocated in particular areas. I have already referred to the inadequacies of the roads programme. Even if we were to stay within the parameters of the Government's projected financial contribution to the structural programme, it is possible, by a rearrangement of allocations to increase the potential funds from Europe and by doing so contribute to tackling our major unemployment problem. For example, if one third of State money allocated in each of the years 1989 to 1993 for FÁS temporary employment schemes were taken out of that sub-head and put into the national roads programme, the resultant addition of £80 million to the roads programme would create potential of an additional £240 million being made available from Brussels for national roads. This would only result in a reduction of the European Community Social Fund contribution by some £13 million. Not only would this make a further contribution towards bringing our road infrastructure up to standard but it would be an investment in the creation of real jobs as opposed to temporary employment schemes. Of course there is no Dáil committee to consider that type of option. The Government simply sent the plan off. We in this House should be able to look at this type of option and at how the priorities or the capital allocation could be rearranged to maximise the benefit not only in tackling our infrastructure problems but in providing real jobs to overcome the major problem of unemployment.
The roads proposals cannot be left without commenting on the extraordinary refusal of the Government to publish their blueprint for road development. Deputy Bruton in his Bill makes provision for a statutory roads authority. The Roads Authority has been in existence as a non-statutory body for some time now. We hear the Minister for the Environment regularly saying that a Bill is about to be published to give that Authority a statutory basis. Such a Bill should be brought forward. The failure of the Minister to do so has motivated provisions regarding the Roads Authority to be contained in the Economic Development Bill. It appears to be the case that the Government are now going to oppose provisions to give a statutory basis to the establishment of the Roads Authority. It suits the Government that the Roads Authority are not statutory because this means that the Authority are kept under the thumb of the Government and are not free to publish reports. They cannot act independently or consult independently with local authorities. If the Roads Authority are critical of the Government at the moment with regard to financial allocation or capital allocation for the roads programme, or if they are critical of the roads priorities that the Government identify, they have no means of making known their criticism. They can only currently communicate with the Government. It suits the Minister for the Environment, in the context of the obsessive secrecy shown by him in refusing to publish the blueprint for road development, to keep the Roads Authority as a non-statutory body under the thumb of the Department of the Environment.
There is an extraordinary obsessive secrecy about the roads programme. The Minister said that he has had the blueprint sitting in his Department since October 1988. We are told indeed that the submissions under the National Development Plan for roads are based on what is contained in that blueprint yet the blueprint cannot be published. Does the Minister believe that the security of the State might be endangered if the roads plans are revealed? Does he think that there is some foreign enemy waiting to find out what we are going to do with our roads programme so that they can determine on which particular major new national road they should land their planes when invading this country? Does the Minister believe there is an enemy outside who wants to discover which potholes are going to be filled on which county roads at which time of the day in the context of how their armies may march in? It is a total nonsense that a blueprint has been sitting in the Department of the Environment for a new roads programme to cover a projected period of 20 years and that it is a national secret. In what country in Europe would a Government regard a blueprint for national primary roads, for secondary and tertiary roads, for filling the potholes in county roads, as a matter of such grave national importance as to be covered by the Official Secrets Act and not published? Is the blueprint to be leaked to The Irish Times?? Are we to read the road priorities in The Irish Times? Are local authorities not entitled to know where their road needs rank in the priority of Government thinking in the context of funds that are being sought from Brussels? It is an extraordinary approach on a matter about which there should not be any major concern. This blueprint should be published. The Roads Authority should be given a statutory basis. Let the Minister publish the roads blueprint and stop coming into this House and saying on a general basis that he is a grand fellow with a secret blueprint that he is sending over to Brussels for a roads programme. It is an extraordinary nonsense typical of the excessive secrecy surrounding the manner in which this plan has been dealt with.
In the context of the contribution made by the Minister for the Environment in the Dáil on this Bill on 8 March 1989, the Minister told us it was his concern to plan and co-ordinate the provision of physical infrastructure to prepare our economy for 1992. The Minister is the co-ordinator, God bless us, of physical infrastructure. Will the Minister for co-ordinating the roads please tell us what plans he has with regard to roads?
In the context of the proposals to change the planning Acts, the Minister gave very short shrift to the provisions contained in this Bill. The Bill is designed to ensure that where a planning application is made the people who should know that an application is being made that may impinge on them, are given proper notice that such an application is being made. One of the great difficulties in the area of planning is that someone making a major planning application for a major industrial proposal or a pharmaceutical or chemical plant, or someone making a minor planning application to build an extra room onto a house is required to advertise in an appropriate local or national newspaper. Few people scan their papers on a daily basis to find out if there is a planning application being made that could affect their wellbeing and the enjoyment of their amenities or their property or affect the health and welfare of themselves, their children or neighbours. That has long been a matter of some concern. The mere obligation to publish in a paper an advertisement that a planning application is being made does not operate as an adequate communication to people who may need to know about that application. This Bill contains a provision to require those people who are applying for planning permission to advertise not only by way of a newspaper the intention to make application to a local authority but also to erect on the site to which the planning application is applicable a suitable notice informing any person or persons interested of the location, nature and extent of the proposed development to take place on such a site.
The Deputy has about a minute and a half left.
That is a very welcome proposal which I expect the Minister for the Environment to accept. If this Bill is not successful tonight I hope this is a proposal that could be incorporated in the Planning Bill. Currently there is a problem with An Bord Pleanála. Whereas the local authorities have a limited time span of two months to determine a planning application, there is no such time limit imposed on An Bord Pleanála. It is not unknown for An Bord Pleanála to take from 12 to 18 months in the context of major planning applications to reach a decision. There is a need to put a time limit on An Bord Pleanála that enables them to properly assess——
You said it.
——the merits or demerits of a planning application. They should not have an open-ended time frame within which to make decisions. This Bill prescribes a time frame that properly balances an opportunity for oral hearings, for an assessment of the viability and appropriateness of the planning application while also constraining An Bord Pleanála to make decisions within a reasonable time. I would have expected that to be a proposal that the Minister could support.
There was a number of other matters in relation to the Bill that deserve support. I regret that I do not have time to address them. Deputy Bruton deserves full support from all sides of this House on this Bill. If the Government disagree with some aspect of it, it can be amended on Committee Stage. The fact that the Government intend to vote against this Bill is simply an additional proof that, in the context of the European enterprise as we head into 1992, they are intent on seeking to ensure that the democratic processes of this House are delimited to the maximum possible extent and that what they are at is covered in a veil of unnecessary and obsessive secrecy.
The Single Market is perhaps the single most important development for the economy since we joined the European Community in 1973. It is of critical importance that we prepare adequately for the inevitable changes it will entail and that we generate a national awareness of the significance of these changes. The common perception is, I think, that frontier controls within Europe will be removed and that otherwise life will go on as usual.
There is far more at stake than the physical removal of barriers. What is in question is a truly integrated market for all goods and services with obviously much greater emphasis than before on competitive pricing. While many of the changes will be of a technical nature, there will be measures which could result in quite fundamental shifts in existing arrangements.
For instance, there will be entirely free movement of capital between the different member states of the Community. This means that a resident of this country or any other member state will be perfectly entitled to lodge his savings in any part of the Community. The choice will be his alone based on his judgment of where he can get the best service and, of course the best return. This new freedom of movement calls into question the differing tax arrangements for savings and investment in the different member states and the Community is at present considering proposals for harmonisation in this area. The removal of controls will probably result in much greater volatility of capital and we will stand to gain or lose on this depending on the attractiveness of our capital markets relative to other markets within the Community.
The integrated market will open the way for the tender of public contracts right across the Community. This is a huge area. Public procurement represents up to 15 per cent of Community output but, right now, only about 1 per cent of public contracts are awarded to residents of other Community countries. A revised public services directive was adopted last year, discussion is continuing on a new directive on public works contracts and the Commission has drawn up proposals to open up contracts in the areas of energy, transport and telecommunications. We already operate open tendering to a greater extent than other member states and, of course, because we are a small open economy, the import content of our purchases is high. These new developments, therefore, should afford us some great opportunities provided our firms, especially those which have traditionally focussed their attention on public contracts, are ready for the new situation. Let me sound a note of warning at the same time to those firms which have relied on contracts here and which are not ready to adjust. Not alone will these firms lose opportunities abroad, but they will experience the winds of keener competition at home. If they do not shape up, the outlook is not good for them. So the clear message on public contracts is that the old order is changing rapidly and that there will be no room for those who do not change.
Frontier controls for goods and passengers will be reduced and there will be consequential savings as goods and people move about much more freely. Many barriers to exports which result from differing national standards will be swept away and road haulage will be liberalised. Agreement has now been reached on a new system for mutual recognition of national professional qualifications which will open up the way for much greater movement of persons with such qualifications. There should be new opportunities for our food industry, with direct access to a market of 320 million people. In short, there is a whole new world of opportunity, if we can be positive about this. Opportunities do not come without attendant risks. Let us be in no doubt about the scale of competition. We have to face up to comparative disadvantages because of our isolation and our relatively low level of development by European standards.
The Community has recognised the problems of unequal development in a unified or single market and it has taken steps to correct this imbalance. It is a fact of life that, in a large market, business will drift more an more towards the central and more prosperous areas unless this is counterbalanced by other measures. In other situations, this problem has sometimes been tackled by measures such as subsidies, taxation incentives, quotas and various special schemes. In the European Single Market, the aim is to achieve the greatest possible harmonisation of rules and regulations right across the Community. The preferred method of channelling special help to the less developed and peripheral regions is the extended use of the Structural Funds to remedy structural deficiencies, both economic and social.
The Structural Funds embrace a number of different funds designed to minimise regional imbalances, namely, the Regional Fund, the Social Fund and the Guidance Section of the Agricultural Fund. The Community has agreed to a very considerable enlargement of these funds in the context of the Single Market. Two crucially important objectives have been set — the Structural Funds for the least developed regions, among which all of Ireland is included, will be doubled by 1992 and there will be an increase in the rates of contribution from the funds to a maximum of 75 per cent.
The National Development Plan which the Government submitted to the European Commission last month sets out the structural measures we propose to implement over the next five years, in conjunction with the Structural Funds, in order to remedy the severe structural deficiencies in our economy and to achieve our potential for faster economic growth and more social progress. It involves measures directed at modernising and improving our roads, transport, telecommunications, postal and energy networks and ensuring adequate environmental and waste disposal services to meet development needs and protect the environment. In addition, it involves measures designed to enhance our productive capacity in industry, tourism, services, agriculture, forestry and fishery, together with rural development measures aimed at increasing employment and income levels in rural areas. The expansion of our educational and training resources is another key element. Together these measures in the plan constitute a comprehensive and integrated approach to achieving economic and social progress over the next five years. It builds on and will accelerate the progress already made over the last two years.
The preparation of this plan involved the most extensive process of consultation ever carried out in the context of preparing a national development plan. Reports were received from each of the regional working groups in advance of finalisation of the plan. While some work is continuing in finalising the Dublin consultants' report, the reports received prior to finalisation of the plan contained all the essential comprehensive assessments of the needs and priorities of each of the seven regions. The reports were fully taken into account in the formalisation of the plan and the operational programmes.
I regret that Deputy Shatter is not in the House because I hope that what emanated from him this evening is not typical of the views of the people who elected him. His contribution was terribly negative and nonsensical. I detected an attitude that you could not trust the Government to execute a national development plan in the overall interests of the people. That type of negativity is totally ridiculous, as we have tried to get a consensus as to what is best and what this House should be contributing to the development of our country.
It is not the case that consultants in the Dublin region were instructed to amend or devise their report in any way or to comply with any pre-requirements. I want to state clearly that the proposals contained in the National Development Plan fully meet the requirements of the European Communities regulations as well as the additionality requirements.
The implementation of the National Development Plan— and the total investment by the State, private sector and Structural Funds which it entails — will place us on a strong competitive footing to face the challenges of the Single Market. It will not, however, solve all our problems and there are other steps that must also be taken. Above all, we ourselves will have to be well prepared both psychologically and practically for the Single Market. There is no time to be lost in making the necessary preparations.
To many, the single market is seen as some event that will take place in 1992, as though this fundamental change could be introduced overnight. The reality is quite different. Of its very nature it has to be a gradual or phased process but the most significant point for us to note here is that it is already happening. The year 1992 is intended to be the end result rather than the starting date for the new order of things. The Government have long since recognised this. Last July the Taoiseach launched a national campaign to create an active awareness of what is at stake and to generate among the business community in general the proper sense of urgency in meeting the new challenge. This campaign is being given top priority and no time is being lost in creating the right conditions so far as the Government are concerned. There must be an equal response from the business community and I think it is fair to say that business is becoming increasingly conscious of its obligations in this regard.
For us the ultimate priority is greatly increased opportunities for employment. We are by no means unique in our concern about employment. It is an issue of concern throughout Europe and one that must be tackled and resolved at Community level. There are, however, different views on the potential for new jobs in the Single Market. The Cecchini studies, which were sponsored by the European Commission, have estimated that the completion of the Single Market, combined with appropriate economic policies, could lead to a net increase of five million jobs in the Community. This would be a welcome achievement and let us hope that it will be realised. Some critics would argue that this target is unrealistic. What is not in question, however, is that with a marketplace, riddled as before with barriers to trade and differing standards, there would be a distinct risk that the Community would go into decline in international trading terms to the detriment of its employment and living standards. Against that, a Single Market, guided by the right policies, has enormous potential to provide a new dynamism in Europe and to provide the many new job opportunities that not just Ireland but the whole Community needs so urgently.
I compliment Deputy Bruton who has introduced this Bill before us — the Economic Development Bill, 1989 — to focus attention on the changes that are upon us and to highlight what he sees as deficiencies in our system as we prepare for the new Europe. I can only commend him for his intention but I must be critical of the manner in which he seeks to bring about improvements. I am not going to analyse the Bill line by line. Other Ministers have already spoken at length on aspects of the Bill of immediate concern to their areas of responsibility and the Minister for Finance in his reply to the Deputy's opening statement has also dealt with the individual items.
Deputy Bruton described his Bill as comprehensive. Despite the claim made in the Explanatory Memorandum that the Bill is designed as an integrated set of measures to prepare the economy for the Single European Act, it is not comprehensive and it is not by any stretch of the imagination a text that embraces all aspects of European integration. On the contrary, it is no more than a list of individual proposals, with no obvious interconnection. The Deputy himself acknowledged in the course of his opening statement that some of the items are of a very minor nature indeed. Frankly, the links between several of these items and the advent of the Single Market is by no means obvious.
I entirely agree that we must give a greater sense of urgency to the preparations for the Single Market. There is no room for complacency and the Government, and indeed the whole Oireachtas, have a duty to guarantee a continuing awareness of the implications of the changes that are upon us. We are not going to achieve this effect, however, by wandering in all directions at once and debating a Bill that has no proper shape or purpose to it.
The thinking behind the Deputy's approach seems to be that, if there is a problem or a deficiency, legislate for it. This is an approach which cannot be commended. For instance, the Deputy wants to legislate in a hurry for the new National Roads Authority. Indeed, Deputy Shatter would love to see such legislation immediately. The House will be asked to legislate for this in due course. As my colleague the Minister for the Environment has already indicated in his contribution to this debate, there will be a comprehensive Bill that will deal with this issue. I expect that there will be a lengthy and measured debate on the subject. There is no merit in rushing such an important matter. Moreover, there is no good reason why the Authority should not be established on a temporary basis pending legislation, so no time will be lost and it can make an overall contribution to the improvement of our entire road structure.
The Bill proposes that the Central Bank should assume specific roles in relation to employment and industrial development. The Central Bank, as Deputy Bruton would know, have very clear cut responsibilities in relation to the currency and the regulation of banking activities. While I have no doubt that the bank are conscious of the importance of employment and industrial development in carrying out their responsibilities, it would be quite wrong to assign a statutory responsibility to them in this respect.
Deputy Bruton has failed to demonstrate that the enhancement of tax reliefs which he proposes could have any appreciable impact in speeding up economic activity. The incentives of concern to him are already very generous — indeed the business expansion scheme has proved too generous in certain respects and the Government have, as Deputies are aware, already introduced measures in the Finance Bill to redirect it to more productive purposes. Deputy Bruton himself called for action on these lines and it is somewhat inconsistent of him to call at the same time for changes which would make it even more attractive to investors.
No, it is not.
The level of interest shown in the scheme in recent times surely confirms that investors already find it a very generous relief. The Deputy expressed disappointment at the response so far to the tax incentive for research and development which, I believe, he himself sponsored in the first instance. It is true that the incentive has not had a significant impact but this may be due more to the lack of suitable projects than to the generosity of the incentive. This incentive, like the business expansion scheme, allows taxpayers to obtain tax relief on investments of up to £25,000 a year and I would have to point out that abolishing the restriction on connected persons investing in a research and development company, which of its nature is a transient entity, would leave the way open to abuse.
The Bill proposes the targets to be set for industrial performance in the year 2000. We all want to make every effort to stimulate employment in every possible way. We must plan for the maximum and be ambitious. It is no solution, however, to pluck figures out of the air and plant them as targets in legislation. The Deputy well knows from his own experience that planning and preparation of targets is inevitably a complex business and even the best-laid plans sometimes go astray. The inclusion of target figures in legislation with no real basis for them would at best be a meaningless exercise and could leave us open to the accusation of incompetence.
The single market is a development of great opportunity for this country. As a small economy, already open to competition and dependent upon exports of goods and services for our survival, the opening up of a huge market of 320 million persons should be of great benefit. This is not a David and Goliath affair as some commentators would imply whereby we will be overrun by competition from abroad once barriers are removed. On the contrary, we should be excited at the prospect of these barriers coming down. Let us give ourselves some credit for what we have already achieved. In some areas we have demonstrated great enterprise; what we need now is more of this.
We have the capacity to turn this new development to our great advantage and the bottom line is that we must learn to be still more competitive. In turn the EC has recognised the needs of the peripheral and less developed regions. In a big market there is a natural tendency for the more prosperous areas to develop faster. I have said there could be a natural drift towards the centre and towards areas of great wealth, and to counteract this assistance in the form of Structural Funds is being made available. We stand to benefit greatly from this. We must be alert to take full advantage of the situation. We must be ready to introduce legislative changes where these are deemed to be necessary.
Some of the changes proposed by Deputy Bruton may have considerable merit and I am not rejecting his proposals out of hand. However, the enactment of a Bill on the lines before us now is not the way forward. I believe that putting this varied collection of items into legislation would achieve no useful purpose and some of the items could have decidedly negative effects. I would prefer that we proceed in an ordered fashion in preparing for the Single Market and where legislative changes are necessary let us debate these in the appropriate context.
The first question I would like to answer is, why have an Economic Development Bill of this kind at all which brings together, as has been acknowledged on all sides of the House, a range of measures from education through the planning laws to industrial development legislation, finance legislation and so on? Why have one Bill bringing all those apparently diverse subjects together?
Essentially the reason this is proposed is that the 1992 challenge to this economy is so serious and immediate that we cannot afford to wait for individual bits of legislation on each of those subjects to find their way slowly through the departmental queue of legislation to the parliamentary draftsman's office and eventually, perhaps two or three years from now, on to the Floor of this House. Anything that relates to the challenge of 1992 must be dealt with definitively in this House in 1989 and no later. We cannot afford the traditional method where Ministers get up and say they will introduce legislation "as soon as possible" or "in due course", the well established pattern of replies we have from that side of the House whenever people ask about forthcoming legislation.
The Deputy used it pretty well himself.
The whole purpose of this Bill is to bring together an omnibus piece of legislation which can deal across the range of all the issues that impact on 1992. I know Deputies opposite will make the criticism, as they have done, that individual measures are not included in this Bill which ought to be included, that there is some sense of a subjective decision as to what has gone into the Bill and what has been excluded. Of course that is so but the great merit of legislation such as this is that when it comes to Committee Stage the Long Title of the Bill is so broadly drawn that any matter the Government felt related to 1992 could be dealt with by means of amendment to the Bill in Committee. The Government have an opportunity in a Bill of this kind to deal with a whole range of matters they might otherwise have to leave languishing somewhere in a long queue of legislation. Any of us who has been in Government knows how long is the queue of matters awaiting legislative action in any Government at any time.
My view and the view advocated by the Fine Gael Party is that we must take anything that deals with 1992 out of the queue and put it up at the top. This Bill provides an instrument which, if the Government had a little magnanimity and vision, could have been used by the Government to get measures of their own through this House in 1989 that would otherwise end up waiting in a long line in the Government's own queue of legislation. I made it quite clear in discussions I had with the Minister for Finance before the introduction of the Bill that I was not particularly concerned about defending any section in this Bill; it was open to the Government to amend it in any way they wished with our co-operation on this side of the House, and to use this Bill to achieve a consensus and bring together and do things that need urgent attention in regard to 1992. Unfortunately the Government had not the wit to see they were being offered something they could have used for their own purposes and, to some extent, even for their own advantage, politically and otherwise. Instead, no, they could not possibly do that. This was something coming from the Opposition and because it was an idea coming from somebody else, that in itself was an implied criticism of the Government, that the Government had not thought of such an approach first and, because the Government had not thought of it first the Government had to oppose it. That is the sort of superficial, kneejerk, narrowminded politics that, unfortunately, have kept this country in Europe's slow lane since we gained independence in 1921. The attitude that if somebody else puts forward something you must oppose it rather than adopt and use it has bedevilled this House in dealing with the nation's problems. It is a legacy of the Civil War certainly, but the Civil War was over a long time ago and surely it is about time proposals coming from the other side could be accepted if they were worth accepting, regardless of who made them. That is the sort of climate of opinion that exists politically in all other continental European countries but for some peculiar reason does not exist here.
However, it is interesting that Ministers, including the Minister currently in the House, could find little or nothing to quarrel with in this Bill. Indeed, the Minister for Education, Deputy Mary O'Rourke, went as far as to say, and I quote directly: "I would find very little to quarrel with in what Deputy John Bruton has put forward in his Bill". Yet, having said there was nothing to quarrel with in it, in a few minutes' time the Minister for Education, Deputy Mary O'Rourke, if she is here, will come in to vote against something in which she herself said she finds nothing to quarrel with. What sort of mindless attitude is that? You are not against it but you are going to vote against it because it is somebody else's idea. That is typical of an attitude of mind that, unfortunately is displayed with undue frequency by the party opposite.
We have a great deal to our name in this country as a result of a consensus approach to politics in the last few years. This Government would not be in office today if the parties in Opposition had decided early in the Government's life to bring them down. Because the parties in Opposition decided the problems of our country, particularly in regard to the public finances, were extremely urgent they decided they would not bring this Government down unnecessarily on a public finance issue. That is a consensus approach in regard to a narrow agenda, that of bringing the debt under control. What has that consensus approach achieved? It has brought down interest rates by six percentage points. When I hear people asking what the country has gained from the Tallaght strategy my answer is simple, the country has gained this from the Tallaght strategy: if you have a mortgage you are paying hundreds of pounds a year less this year than you were paying in 1986 simply because an Opposition party have allowed the Government to put through measures to put our finances back in order.
They have recognised the ability of the Government to do the job.
A farmer may owe a substantial amount of money. As a direct result of the Opposition's unprecedented decision to allow the Government of the day to implement measures to get our finances under control, interest rates have been brought down. Farmers are paying somewhere in the region of £130 million less interest payments as a direct result of the strategy of the Opposition which allowed the Government to bring our finances under control rather than precipitate a succession of elections of the kind Fianna Fáil precipitated when first the Coalition Government attempted to do something similar in 1981-82.
One of them they called by mistake.
This Bill reveals a fundamental cleavage in economic thinking between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. In the Fianna Fáil view what counts is big projects, big capital spending programmes and, above all, ministerial announcements, Ministers cutting tapes on bridges, Ministers cutting tapes at schools, Ministers associating their names with building things and, above all, when they pass on to the never-never land of former Ministers, having RTCs called after them. That is the sort of ambition, the fixation with building, the Fianna Fáil party have, as if building things in itself had some inherent merit.
What will make a difference to the economy is not what we build but what we do inside the buildings. What matters is whether people have an incentive to work, whether people on social welfare feel they should remain unemployed because if they take a job they will lose money, whether our educational system turns out people who have the view that they should try to set up a business of their own because that is the value the educational system has put into their minds, or whether they have the idea that the ideal is to get a safe job in the Civil Service or the bank, to be employed by somebody else — the ideal which the educational system at present tends to promote. It is all to do with perception. Our perception on this side of the House is that attitudes of mind, work and incentives rather than buildings, projects and announcements make the difference.
That is why I am so critical of The National Development Programme announced during the past few weeks. It is an affront to describe it as such when it is simply a list of capital projects, as if capital projects on their own will make any difference. They will make no difference unless people have the ability and the incentive to work harder. It is to improve that ability and incentive that this Economic Development Bill is put forward. It is in that context its measures have been framed. There are a number of issues we must tackle if we are to overcome our problems. We must reform our income tax system, which means perhaps reducing the rates of tax and getting rid of some of the tax allowances which exist. The reality is that if any party in Government make a suggestion to reduce somebody's allowances, all the other parties will vote against them. This applies no matter who is in Government.
Likewise, we need to establish a proper system of local government, financed by its own system of taxation which it can raise and control. If any Deputy or Minister suggests a particular method of raising funds for local authorities or a new tax to fund local authorities, all the other people in the House will jump on him and make as much political capital as they possibly can about his unwisdom in making any such suggestion.
The result of this mutual veto which we exercise on new ideas coming from the other side is that we have made virtually no progress in tax reform, no progress in dealing with issues such as local government reform, no progress in dealing with the huge monopoly costs imposed on our economy by the fact that our electricity system is run by a statutory monopoly which nobody dares challenge because of the political implications. We have huge extra telephone costs because our telecommunications systems is run by a Government monopoly, Telecom, which again nobody dares challenge even though there are lots of private options which could be considered. We have also major costs imposed on our economy because of artificial restrictions on who may land airplanes in various parts of the country. I know from bitter experience that anybody in Government attempting to put forward proposals to deal with those issues will meet with a howl of criticism from whomever happens to be sitting on these benches. That applies whether it is the Minister's party or mine.
That is why we propose in this Bill, given that a consensus has worked in regard to getting the debt under control, to extend the possible area wherein consensus could apply to all areas related to 1992. That is why we propose a joint committee to look at a whole range of areas, tax reform, Telecom, State monopolies and their effect on the economy and business costs, a system of local government taxation which is genuinely autonomous. These issues cannot be tackled by a party on their own but could be tackled within a structure such as a committee to prepare this country for 1992 on an all-party basis. If there were to be a political downside, all the parties in the House would suffer some of the consequences rather than whoever happened to be in Government and made the proposal. Of course, Fianna Fáil could not see any merit in that. Their idea of consensus is that they propose something and everybody else agrees. There is no question in their mind of consensus involving discussing matters with people and actually reaching agreement but that consensus is the laying down of the law by Fianna Fáil and everybody else giving them a round of applause. Anybody who dares to criticise anything they suggest is immediately branded as lacking in patriotism or some other much desired quality.
This is an historic opportunity. We have seen how consensus worked to get the debt under control. Any thinking Fianna Fáil Deputy must recognise that it could not have happened without the co-operation of the Opposition parties. It has yielded tremendous results for which we can all take credit, including — perhaps particularly — the Government party. We have lower interest rates, more investment and growing employment which we did not have two years ago. It is true and we are all entitled to the credit for it. Why cannot we do the same in regard to preparations for 1992? Why are the Government rejecting this Bill in the light of these facts?
A vital issue if we are to benefit from the market of 1992 is that we be able to speak to the people in Europe in their own languages. There is not much point in building high speed roads to Germany if Irish people cannot speak to the Germans at the far end of those roads and have to say "Mein Gott, why will you not buy what we have to sell?" What will happen is that the high speed roads will be carrying German goods here. Germans who come here selling their goods are certainly able to speak English but Irish people producing goods at this end of the air corridors do not speak German. Only 4 per cent of Irish students doing the leaving certificate examination take German as a subject. Even then they take it as a written subject and do not have any proficiency in speaking the language.
Purely grammar.
Purely grammar and literature — reading extracts from Goethe or something like that as if that will help them to sell Irish clothing and beef in Baden-Württemberg. That is why this Bill proposes specific action to improve language teaching. We are proposing a target of at least two continental languages, French and German, Spanish and German or some other combination, to be taken by all children when they are finishing post-primary education.
We also want the EC to give money towards the training and re-training of our teachers in continental languages. We have an entirely artificial situation at present where the European structural funds will be used for something called "training". If people dig holes and fill them up again under the supervision of somebody who is supposed to be a skilled craftsman, that is called training and EC money will be available for it. If we want to put money into training our teachers to teach students German or French, that is education and the EC will not help. This Bill proposes that the Government should have a mandate by law to seek to change that foolish EC rule.
We also want the Government to be given a mandate to bring the teaching of continental languages into primary schools. It is well known that the younger children are the more adaptable they are and the more open their minds are to new ideas. The older they get the more rigid they become. Obviously, if we want to introduce a whole new concept of language and expression, the earlier the better. It makes eminent sense that we should teach French and German in our national schools as well as teaching Irish. I have no doubt that teaching Irish is a good thing. It actually helps people to get the idea of learning a second language and it is in no way a hindrance to learning German or French. There is not much point in saying it is good to have Irish in the national schools because it opens people's minds to the possibility of learning a third language if we do not actually teach them the third language in the primary schools. This Bill proposes that there should be a certificate of competence in foreign languages recognised by the State. At the moment if people take the trouble privately to do a course in German or French, there is no body to recognise what they have achieved. There is no public examination to recognise what they have achieved in acquiring a particular level of competence. There should be such and this Bill proposes that.
This Bill also proposes a major speeding up of the planning law in order to have decisions by planning authorities and other projects taken quickly. I would remind the Minister of State that in the last election his party promised that An Bord Pleanála would be required to decide appeals within four months. That promise has not been kept despite the fact that there is a planning Bill before this House which could have contained this proposal. Our Bill requires Fianna Fáil to keep their own election promises in regard to speeding up planning legislation. I do not see why they are not prepared to accept a Fine Gael Bill that helps them to keep their own promises.
In section 6 we propose an overhaul of higher education. The Higher Education Authority should not be the preserve of academics. At present the Authority is run exclusively by academics. I have no animosity towards, nor do I deprecate in any way, people who have degrees; but I do not believe that they should have a monopoly in running higher education. We need more people on the Higher Education Authority who would be actually employing the graduates who come out from our colleges. It is simply a question of consumer power. If we want higher education to work it should be related to the needs of the people who will actually employ the graduates rather than solely to the needs of the colleges and to individual professors who want to build up their own departments. At the moment the Higher Education Authority spend most of their time deciding whether Professor A will do better than Professor B in the battle for funds. It is not a question of higher education being geared to the needs of 1992 but of which professor does best in the rat race. The Higher Education Authority should be radically overhauled by increasing dramatically the number of non-academic members so that it will have a consumer oriented perspective which it does not have at the moment.
This Bill also proposes that the Higher Education Authority be reoriented towards giving more opportunities at second chance education. At present higher education is exclusively the preserve of those who happen to have parents who are well off enough to send them to college in the first few years after they leave school. The 109,000 pupils who have been out of work for more than a year have no chance of going to higher education institutions here even though it is well known that most of those people will never get another job in their lives unless they have a radically improved educational standard. That is why this Bill proposes that the Higher Education Authority be mandated by law to spend more of their money on second chance education. Unless this is done the Higher Education Authority will do nothing because speeches are ignored. I particularly hope that a second chance will be given to the long term unemployed and other vulnerable groups in society who should get more of the higher education funds than is the case at the moment. Let me draw the attention of the House, as if I needed to do that, to the fact that the overwhelming majority of those coming from some of the most expensive faculties in our universities are going straight out of the country. Irish educational investment is being handed over to other countries to exploit for their economic development.
Higher education should be reoriented towards second chance education for those who are living here, many of whom are long term unemployed. It is a radical proposal which I hope will have the support particularly of the parties of the Left who make this their own particular issue. This Bill will redistribute favourably the resources that go into higher education. I hope it will have the support of Deputies Higgins, De Rossa and others of their parties.
I want to move on to the proposal to establish by law a national roads authority. There has been a lot of talk from the Government about this. The party opposite are now over two years in office. It is about time they introduced this legislation. Whatever it is that is holding it up, let them forget it. This Bill provides the Minister with the means to immediately take the first step to establish by law a national roads authority. I invite the party opposite to take this opportunity to get on with the job rather than wasting time as they are doing at the moment.
Section 9 is particularly important. It proposes that mortgage relief be extended to people who take out loans to invest in shares in a small company creating jobs here. At present people with savings are pouring them into bidding up the prices of houses on the south side of this city. We have speculation in houses. This means that people are putting their money into house property. I am in favour of houses, but they do not produce a new continuing stream of wealth; they are a consumer good. Yet, because our tax incentives are confined solely to housing, the savings of people are being poured into housing, into bidding up the price of housing and building up a speculative bubble in houses on the south side of Dublin city. The proposal in this Bill would divert some of the money that is being poured into the creation of this speculative bubble into companies that would create jobs under the Business Expansion Scheme. I welcome the tightening up of that scheme by the Minister for Finance. The money should go into the Business Expansion Scheme under the present Finance Bill and people should be able to use mortgage interest relief to invest in companies rather than being able to get tax relief solely through trading up in housing.
I also want to refer to the need to have regional development authorities to implement at local level the proposals that are before us at the moment to build up the capital strength of our economy through EC Structural Funds. It is essential that people be involved at local and regional levels in these decisions. The spending of this money should not be a matter handed down from on high by the Government like manna from Heaven. Unless people feel they have some part in this they will not make sure that it works properly. I would remind the Government that in their election manifesto they promised that Fianna Fáil would introduce procedures whereby local authorities can make direct application for regional funding and receive such funding directly from the EC. They have done the opposite. They have said they will not even forward to Brussels the proposals prepared in the individual regions. The proposals into which so much work has gone are now, I suggest, going to end up in the very ample shredder that exists in the Department of Finance. That piece of equipment will be overheated and may blow its fuse in the next few weeks with all of these local authority and other proposals that are going to be fed into it, despite the fact that they promised that local authorities would be able to apply directly to Brussels. If ever there was a U-turn this is it. This must qualify as a double S-turn in political terms, but then Fianna Fáil are used to that; they have quite an expertise in that field.
There is a number of other proposals I would like to refer to. Deputy Treacy criticised the proposal that we should set ourselves a target of 100,000 extra people at work here by the end of the century, and a doubling of Ireland's share of the world markets. He asked: "Where was this proposal plucked from? Was it plucked from the air? Surely there is not much point having proposals like this." I would like to tell the Minister of State, Deputy Treacy, and the Government that no less a body than the OECD which investigated this economy said that if we were to harness our national endeavour and our spirit in an innovative process and if we were to get everybody working towards making this country a more innovative society, we would have to set ourselves an ambitious target for the end of the century.
The proposal in the Fine Gael Bill is exactly the target that was proposed for the Irish economy by the OECD. It was not plucked from the air but was taken from a report on the Irish economy by the most prestigious and most independent of all the economic commentating bodies. It is something that we want to write into law in this Bill as a target for our nation and a target which could be supported, and I hope will be supported in the lobbies tonight by all the main parties in the House.
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 47; Níl, 66.
Tá
- Barnes, Monica.
- Barrett, Seán.
- Barry, Peter.
- Begley, Michael.
- Birmingham, George.
- Boland, John.
- Boylan, Andrew.
- Bruton, John.
- Deasy, Austin.
- Deenihan, Jimmy.
- Doyle, Avril.
- Dukes, Alan.
- Durkan, Bernard.
- FitzGerald, Garret.
- Flaherty, Mary.
- Griffin, Brendan.
- Harney, Mary.
- Hegarty, Paddy.
- Higgins, Jim.
- Kelly, John.
- Kennedy, Geraldine.
- Kenny, Enda.
- Lowry, Michael.
- McCoy, John S.
- Bruton, Richard.
- Carey, Donal.
- Clohessy, Peadar.
- Colley, Anne.
- Connaughton, Paul.
- Cosgrave, Michael Joe.
- Creed, Donal.
- Cullen, Martin.
- McDowell, Michael.
- McGahon, Brendan.
- McGinley, Dinny.
- Mitchell, Gay.
- Mitchell, Jim.
- Nealon, Ted.
- Noonan, Michael. (Limerick East).
- O'Brien, Fergus.
- O'Keeffe, Jim.
- O'Malley, Desmond J.
- O'Malley, Pat.
- Quill, Máirín.
- Sheehan, P. J.
- Wyse, Pearse.
- Yates, Ivan.
Níl
- Abbott, Henry.
- Ahern, Bertie.
- Ahern, Dermot.
- Ahern, Michael.
- Andrews, David.
- Aylward, Liam.
- Barrett, Michael.
- Brady, Gerard.
- Brady, Vincent.
- Brennan, Matthew.
- Brennan, Séamus.
- Browne, John.
- Burke, Ray.
- Byrne, Hugh.
- Connolly, Ger.
- Coughlan, Mary T.
- Cowen, Brian.
- Daly, Brendan.
- Davern, Noel.
- Dempsey, Noel.
- Dennehy, John.
- de Valera, Síle.
- Ellis, John.
- Fahey, Frank.
- Fitzgerald, Liam.
- Fitzpatrick, Dermott.
- Flood, Chris.
- Flynn, Pádraig.
- Foley, Denis.
- Gallagher, Denis.
- Gallagher, Pat the Cope.
- Geoghegan-Quinn, Máire.
- Hilliard, Colm Michael.
- Hyland, Liam.
- Jacob, Joe.
- Kirk, Séamus.
- Kitt, Michael P.
- Kitt, Tom.
- Lawlor, Liam.
- Leonard, Jimmy.
- Leyden, Terry.
- Lyons, Denis.
- McCarthy, Seán.
- McCreevy, Charlie.
- Mooney, Mary.
- Morley, P. J.
- Moynihan, Donal.
- Nolan, M. J.
- Noonan, Michael J. (Limerick West).
- O'Dea, William Gerard.
- O'Donoghue, John.
- O'Hanlon, Rory.
- O'Keeffe, Batt.
- O'Keeffe, Ned.
- O'Leary, John.
- O'Rourke, Mary.
- Reynolds, Albert.
- Roche, Dick.
- Swift, Brian.
- Treacy, Noel.
- Wallace, Dan.
- Walsh, Joe.
- Walsh, Seán.
- Wilson, John P.
- Woods, Michael.
- Wright, G. V.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies J. Higgins and Boylan; Níl, Deputies V. Brady and D. Ahern.
Question declared lost.