Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 26 Oct 2000

Vol. 525 No. 1

Adjournment Debate Matters. - National Development Plan: Statements.

Minister for Finance (Mr. McCreevy)

I welcome this opportunity to address the House on the National Development Plan 2000 – 2006. For the benefit of the House I recall the key features of the plan, which was launched by the Government last November. In my forward to the plan I said its vision was to ensure that Ireland will remain competitive in the global international marketplace and that the fruits of economic success will be shared more equally at regional level and throughout society. This vision was reflected in the following key objectives of the plan, namely, to continue sustainable national economic and employment growth; consolidate and improve Ireland's international competitiveness; foster balanced regional development; and promote social inclusion.

Consistent with this vision and objectives, the Government decided it should be an ambitious national plan which was wide in scope, rather than having the drawing down of EU funding as its primary focus. Accordingly, for the first time, the plan included key areas of social infrastructure, such as housing and health.

The ambition of the plan is illustrated by the unprecedented level of funding provided – over £40 billion at 1999 prices. Of this £40 billion just under £36 billion is from domestic sources, the vast bulk of which is from the Exchequer. This level of Exchequer provision is not only a dividend of the excellent management of the economy in recent years, it is also a clear signal of the Government's determination to see the vision and objectives of the plan realised.

Key features of the plan include an investment of about £21 billion in the economic and social infrastructure which, over the period of the plan, will transform the road network and bring about significant improvements in the level of public transport provision; an employment and human resources programme of almost £10 billion with a major focus on education and training for those who are disadvantaged or unemployed; a programme of about £4.5 billion for the productive sector, including an objective over the period of the plan that more than half of all new jobs from future new foreign direct investment projects will be in the Border, midlands and west region; a £15 billion allocation across all operational programmes aimed at promoting social inclusion; an allocation of £6.7 billion in various operational programmes to support rural development; and a minimum target of almost £2 billion for public-private partnership investment under the plan.

The plan also contains significant other features including, for the first time, the devolution of the management of the two regional operational programmes to the regional assemblies for the Border, midlands and western, and southern and eastern regions, respectively; a commitment in the context of regional development policy to the preparation of a national spatial strategy and a reinforced basis for North-South co-operation on foot of the development plans of both jurisdictions.

In summary, the NDP is without precedent in terms of its ambition, scope and level of resources. It is not surprising, therefore, that there was a consensus among social partners and regional interests at the time of its launch that it represented a solid blueprint for tackling the economic and social issues facing Ireland in the early years of the new millennium.

Solid progress has been made in implementing the plan since it was published in November last. The community support framework for Ireland, which sets out the agreed priorities for the use of Structural Funds under the NDP, has been agreed with the European Commission and was formally adopted in July. The CSF reflects the plan's priorities and strategies. Negotiations have effectively concluded with the Commission on the operational programmes.

The employment and human resources development operational programme has been approved and the remaining five operational programmes are expected to be approved by the Commission very shortly. Work is progressing with the special EU programmes body and the Northern Ireland authorities on finalising the peace operational programme for submission to the Commission.

As regards plan expenditure, while progress was relatively slow in the first six months of this year, the quarter to the end of September has seen an acceleration in key areas. In the infrastructure area, expenditure on roads has been noticeably strong. While expenditure in other infrastructural areas has been weaker to date it is still anticipated that overall spend in 2000 under this heading will be very close to the plan's target for the year.

Obviously current escalating costs in the construction sector are a major worry in terms of their implications for the level of resources necessary to deliver the planned level of output under the NDP. It is no secret that the tender prices across the whole range of the NDP infrastructure programme have been higher then when the plan was prepared. There is a limit to which the Exchequer can be expected to compensate for excessive cost increases. Nonetheless, I assure the House that the Government is determined to implement the infrastructure programme set out in the NDP over the period of the plan.

In a scenario of rising costs it behoves us to ensure that all other elements which influence cost effective and timely infrastructure delivery bear positively on the situation. The Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure and Public-Private Partnerships and the cross-departmental team which supports its work have been very active in this regard. The Cabinet committee has received and will continue to receive regular reports and oral presentations from the relevant implementing agencies on progress on the key infrastructural project in the NDP. In addition, the Cabinet committee and cross-departmental team have under ongoing consideration the legal, institutional and administrative obstacles which could impede the delivery of infrastructure under the plan. Among the steps taken to date arising from their deliberations are measures in the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act which will enhance the statutory approval and judicial review process; additional resources for An Bord Pleanála, the NRA and Dúchas have established a code of practice to ensure co-ordination in regard to archaeological issues for major projects; the NRA has also put in place enhanced management procedures which will reduce delivery time for road projects; and a communications strategy for the NDP is being put in place.

The deliverability issue is one of the key considerations behind the NDP communications strategy which is being developed. A key element of this strategy will be to ensure that the public, especially communities directly affected by NDP projects, are fully and openly informed about the NDP. A second key element of the communications strategy will be an information campaign aimed at key international companies in the sphere of infrastructural delivery with the objective of augmenting domestic capacity in this area.

All of us are aware of instances where local controversies have arisen in relation to the impact of infrastructural projects. I do not for a moment wish to deny the right of individual groups and communities to voice valid concerns in relation to the impact of such developments on them. It is very important, however, that we also try to look at the bigger picture and the national interest in relation to these issues. If we cannot provide ourselves with the transport facilities, the proper environmental services, including waste management facilities, and necessary access to energy and communications networks, we will not create the conditions for continuing sustainable economic growth, nor will we assist the objective of a better regional balance in economic development.

For its part, the Government will work to ensure that the proper balance is maintained between speedy delivery of necessary infrastructure and the need to address any adverse consequences it may have on particular communities. It should be noted that there are structures in place to address concerns that may arise in relation to the planning, environmental and heritage implications of infrastructure projects.

We are only ten months into a seven-year plan. Given the scale of some of the infrastructure projects in the plan, it will be some time before sig nificant progress will be visible on the ground. A key factor at present is the need to ensure that implementing agencies are proactively engaged in delivery on infrastructure and that other issues such as construction capacity are addressed. The Cabinet committee is actively engaged on these issues.

The national development plan is a central element in the achievement of continuing sustainable economic growth, a more inclusive society and better regional balance in economic growth. I assure the House that we will be vigilant at the highest levels of Government in monitoring progress on the NDP. I look forward in the future to reporting to the House on a periodic basis on plan implementation.

Mr. Noonan

The national development plan is seriously off the rails. I am not surprised this is the case because the cart was put before the horse. The plan as published is, in effect, an amalgamation of the wish lists which were on the files of every county manager and county and city engineer. The level of spend proposed is enormous but because there was no spatial plan in place before all the project related plans were published, it is very difficult for the plan to progress on target.

A spatial plan is being formulated. When the national development plan was published I was reliably informed that an assistant principal in the Department of the Environment and Local Government was spending half his time on the development of a spatial plan. I presume this has been geared up and that adequate resources have been made available to develop a spatial plan. However, I understand it will not be published within two years.

This is a serious flaw as the spatial plan has to decide where people live and work, how they will get from home to work and is fundamental to a national plan. There may be some agenda within Departments which answers these questions but if there is, it certainly is not published. Where will the new growth centres be located? Where will the people live, where will they work and how will they move from one place to the other? How much movement will be by road, by public transport and by rail? What are the key decisions which underpin it? In the absence of answers to those questions there is bound to be a difficulty.

There is another difficulty which arises from the enormity of the spend. The Minister's figures in the plan, which he repeated today, indicate that the proposed spend is £40.6 billion. It is difficult to know what is included in that. The capital component from the semi-State companies does not seem to be included in it. The extent to which the CIE spend is included is not clear. The FEOGA £1.7 billion seems to be excluded. Co-financing by the IDA for the establishment of industry is not included. If we factor in all the items not included, it seems to me that the total spend pro- posed is about £50 billion. That is a great deal of money by any standards.

Already we are falling behind significantly. One can see it in the roads programme, which includes the Kildare by-pass in the Minister's constituency. It is coming to the stage where this project is a cross between a national scandal and a national joke in that there is a bridge in the middle of nowhere, which I pass every morning on my way to Dublin. It is like a scene from post-war Bosnia, where this broken bridge is in the middle of the bogland.

Mr. McCreevy

We are lucky that it was not left there on its own.

Mr. Noonan

It will be a monument to the inefficiency of the system, if it is to lie there in the middle of the fields.

Mr. McCreevy

It will not be left, but it nearly was.

Mr. Noonan

I know that the contract has been awarded again.

There is a recent example of this in Watergrasshill in County Cork, where the bonding system, which was included as an addition to the contract, was included as part of the tender documents and now the fellow who lodged the highest tender probably has a legal right to be awarded the contract because other people did not fill up the bond. These kinds of things should not happen at this stage of the development.

There is a great inefficiency also in the co-ordination between the local authorities and the National Roads Authority and in the inability to come to conclusions when decisions must be made. In my constituency, Limerick city is being by-passed. Phase I is now constructed. This too leaves traffic in the middle of nowhere, out on the Ballysimon Road. Phase II, which will take one as far as the Dublin road, has not yet gone to tender but by then all the traffic will rush around the city and arrive at the city side of Adare, where it will stack up for the next ten years as it crawls through the village because the decision to put the Adare by-pass in place has not been taken yet. The obvious solution is to take a link road from the Adare by-pass across to the N69 to serve the port of Foynes but no decision has been taken. There is a decision to by-pass Adare but there has been no decision to link it to the N69. Therefore the pieces of the infrastructural proposals are not hanging together. They do not form a pattern. They are not being processed efficiently and already the plan is way behind schedule. With the enormous spend proposed, the only way the money will be spent now is, as the Minister suggested in his speech, if the accelerated cost of the projects hoover up the money, but we are not getting value for money even at this early stage in these projects. It is not working.

We need not only a spatial plan but an implementation plan in parallel with the national plan. I strongly suggest that the Minister immediately put in place an implementation plan to underpin this. I do not mean that he should establish a Cabinet sub-committee, although that may be the starting point. If targets are to be achieved, there must be people driving this every day of the week. They could start by talking to the Members of the House. Fianna Fáil Deputies will give him a list of anecdotes about how this is not working, how it is lagging behind and the problems which exist already. It is simply not working.

We all know the problems in regard to roads. When I first came to this House, I used come from my house on the Cork road side of Limerick city to Kildare Street in two and three quarter hours. The roads have improved enormously since but the journey takes me a half an hour longer because of the density of traffic. Many of the improvements which have been made are outdated before they are commissioned. The Nenagh bypass is the latest improvement on my journey but it is single, not dual, carriageway. It is already out of date and therefore there are many attendant difficulties.

The Minister will be familiar with the Roscrea ring-road on which there are all these roundabouts and intersections and only one flyover. In any proper development the crossing traffic should be separated from the through traffic. Therefore the projects coming on stream contain design deficiencies in the modern context and no longer fulfil the need, and there are other projects which are just being held up for all sorts of reasons.

The problem of waste disposal is not being dealt with. Apart from speeches by the Minister's colleague, the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Dempsey, and the notion that there are regional waste disposal plans, I do not know anywhere, where the plans have moved forward an inch and I know of several places where plans have fallen back a mile. We are in a worse situation than we were several years ago. One can name places all around the country where the people do not want landfill or incineration and the local authorities are not providing the facilities for environmentally conscious people, who want to segregate refuse and to dispose of it in an environmentally friendly way. Last week somebody told me at a constituency clinic that he was interested in protecting the environment but Limerick Corporation does not provide a facility where he can dispose of bottles near his home and where he can separate plastic, paper and organic material. No such segregation is being carried out. There is a great deal of guff and theory, but the environmentally friendly household cannot easily dispose of its refuse in a segregated way.

The bottle banks are usually located at the large shopping centres, but one needs to own a car to get to them. If one goes into the flatland areas of cities and towns where many of the young people are environmentally conscious but do not own cars, that is where one will find the people most educated on the environment but they will not get on a bus with two bags of bottles to dispose of them in the bottle bank out in the suburbs. If one provides facilities to the people like those available in Barcelona, for example, where there is a refined system of segregation in place, where, for example, once a month there is a collection of wooden materials such as old furniture and where they provide the facilities to the people, then people will behave responsibly. However what is happening here is that the people are being lectured to be environmentally friendly, the facilities are not put in place to facilitate this and then the big proposal is put up on the table and it is deadlocked. Most people I know will oppose incineration and landfill in their locality, but the only alternative is to reduce the amount of waste and that is the road which should be followed but it is not happening. There is a great deal of guff talked about it, there are seminars about it and there are pretty speeches published about it, but there is nothing provided locally for the person who wants to dispose of his or her refuse in an environmentally friendly way.

There is also a shortage of staff and this will affect the plan. The Minister is aware of this but it is worth mentioning again. There are not sufficient staff in the planning offices, and certainly there are not enough in Dúchas. There is a shortage of archaeologists and major projects are being held up as a result. Practically anywhere one cuts a road one will come across an archaeologically significant site and there is nobody available to sort it out.

This is not working. The best start would be for the Minister to call his parliamentary party together and have a chat with them. They will tell him the truth about what is happening.

Mr. McDowell

As people who do this class of job are wont to have to do on occasion, a few weeks ago I was looking at statistics for GDP per capita. They suggest that Ireland is fifth from the top of the OECD league in terms of GDP per capita, which is a measure of wealth determined by dividing national income by the number of people in the country or the number of workers. On the face of it, that makes us look like an extremely rich country and, I suppose, compared to where we were ten, 20 or 30 years ago, we are. All of us know there is another side to that coin, which is, the infrastructure, whether the social infrastructure, recreational facilities, the roads, waste management facilities or whatever. That is where the real poverty is. There is general consensus in this House that it needs to be addressed. That, I guess, is from where the national development plan came.

I agree with Deputy Noonan that the plan is in very real trouble because it was not, and is not, really a plan. All that actually happened was that when we discovered one bright day last year or the year before last, or somebody in the Department of Finance suddenly decided we could afford to spend a few quid on a few projects, they went around the various Department looking for submissions. In most cases, they got submissions which had been on the books for a number of years and they were put together as a plan. The amount was totted up, a figure was reached and it was published with a certain amount of ceremony last year.

In some cases, Departments did not have plans on the stocks at all – in some cases, scandalously so. The Department of Public Enterprise, for example, even when asked, still could not produce anything resembling a convincing or persuasive plan for public transport in Dublin despite having had responsibility for that for countless decades. Even when asked for a wish list, it could not come up with one. We all know what has happened since and I will go into that in a few moments.

There are plenty of problems with the plan but, I suppose, the principal difficulty we currently face is cost overruns, and this really has become an enormous problem. To take an example of one project close to my constituency – the Dublin port tunnel project – when it was first mooted about two or three years ago, we were talking about a figure of perhaps £120 million. Last year that figure rose to about £170 million and towards the end of last year, it was over the £200 million mark. Most recently, when the contract was awarded, the figure was a staggering £353 million. In addition to that, there will be a figure of an additional £80 million give or take, for supervision. There is also a need to acquire some land at Dublin port. This important project, which was originally to cost the taxpayer around £130 million, will now cost nearly four times that. I do not want to deal with the individual project as such, although we could ask serious questions about the cost benefit analysis of whether it still stacks up, but the point is that if this is happening in that project, I have no doubt it is happening in many similar projects throughout the country.

The NRA first calculated that it could deal with its 1996 assessment of needs on the basis of something like £4 billion. That figure now stands at well more than twice that. The bottom line here is very clear; it is that the NRA, the Government and the national plan cannot deliver on the major road projects with the amount of money that is being set aside in the plan. I would like to know – the Minister of State is here now and obviously has a particular interest, for example, in the Waterford road – whether even the major motorways and dual carriageways can be, or will be, delivered within the period of the plan because all the indications are that the cost overruns are such that we simply cannot afford it unless Government decides to add additional money to what has already been set aside.

One of the other difficulties from the point of view of roads is the nature of the contracts that have been awarded. There is consensus in this House that we need to think on a bigger scale, that we need to go for bigger contracts and for longer stretches for road for any one contract. To do that, we would probably have to bring in contractors from abroad who will bring in their own work forces as well as everything else, but we are not doing that. I looked through the NRA's list of projects for this year, none of which is longer than the southern cross and the south eastern motorway which are about ten or 12 kilometres give or take. We are still not dealing with the lengths of motorway with which it will be necessary to deal to encourage in contractors from abroad. The Minister and the Taoiseach have said they will do it. I would like to give the Minister this opportunity to confirm that today and to indicate the sort of contracts and projects which we will put out to tender in the relatively near future.

The Minister has left the House, but perhaps the other scandal about the Kildare by-pass is not that it has taken so long to build but that it was such a short project in the first place. We all know that once Kildare is by-passed, all we are really doing is postponing the difficulty to Monasterevin. Surely to goodness the same by-pass, the same stretch of road, could, and should, have been used to by-pass both towns and get around what has become a big headache for anybody travelling from Dublin to Limerick or Dublin to Cork.

I agree with Deputy Noonan that the spatial plan is a real difficulty. I read the report the Department of Environment and Local Government produced and I confess I thought it was a good report. However, it is several years too late. We needed to put this in place at the same time as the national development plan because obviously they fit hand in glove together. We have now encountered a strange difficulty, although perhaps not that strange, in that we have a spatial plan that is in the making but which will not be there for two years, we have strategic planning guidelines for the Dublin area which everybody is ignoring and we have roads infrastructure and, to some extent, a public transport infrastructure which is being put in place before everything else is in place. What we need is a Department, a Minister or somebody to drive all of this, to pull it all together and to take a strategic look at it. We cannot have somebody responsible for this, that or the other and everybody working to different plans which, unfortunately, is precisely what is happening at the moment.

One thing about which I was concerned when the plan was first produced was the whole issue of social inclusion. While social inclusion appears as a heading in the plan and there are subheadings dealing with issues such as child care and so on, one thing is singularly missing from the plan – I hope that in time some meat can be put on these bones – is the absence of any proposal to deal with areas of deprivation. It is assumed that if we deal with child care, adult education and various other issues, they will impact on areas of particular social deprivation. There is no effort made to highlight the perhaps 15 worst areas of social deprivation, most of which are in Dublin, Cork and Limerick, and to target them. That is not in the plan and I regret it because there is an urgent need for it.

One of the features of the debate we had last year related to regionalisation which ultimately resulted in splitting the country into two regions. My major beef at that time was the absence of any regional authorities with real power. Developments since then have proved my case. My understanding is that the dominating hand of the Department of Finance is still very much in evidence in the way the regional authorities have dealt with the relatively small amount of money under their control.

Yesterday the south eastern regional authority made decisions dealing with about 15% of the total spend in the south eastern area. That was fair enough in so far as it went but the remaining 85% is still being decided in Merrion Street. In reality, we do not have any regional or local control over the way projects are decided and the way money is spent. That is regrettable. I appreciate this does not happen overnight and that we cannot suddenly develop an additional layer of governance and decision making but we have to acknowledge there is need for that, that there is a will at local level to make decisions and that there is an expertise at local level in identifying need. We need to represent that on bodies which are both accountable and representative.

There was also a debate last year about State aids and about the IDA strategy. I would be interested if the Minister could tell us whether there is tangible evidence of the redirection of effort by the IDA away from the east coast and Dublin towards the BMW area, in particular. We were given assurances at that time that there would be a refocusing of policy towards those areas. One year on, I would like to know whether there is any substantial evidence of that. I am also curious to know whether the issue of State aids, which we debated at such lengths a year and a half ago, has proved to be of any substance and whether the fact that State aids can now be given in the southern and eastern area on a far less generous basis has impacted or whether, conversely, in the BMW area, the IDA and others have found themselves providing State aids up to the maximum that is allowed under the regional policy of the European Union.

All of us wish the plan well and the Government well in delivering what we all support and what the country clearly needs. There is a need to recognise that there are problems even in the first six or nine months in the delivery of the plan and in the plan itself in the way it relates to the various other plans – the spatial plan and the strategic guidelines developed. There is a need to draw all the proposals together and to ensure the plan is properly delivered.

Minister of State at the Department of Finance (Mr. Cullen)

In his opening statement on the debate my colleague, the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, paid particular attention to the delivery of the ambitious expenditure programme for economic and social infrastructure in the national development plan. I return to this matter because doubts have been expressed about the deliverability of the infrastructure programme of the plan and because this element of it is essential to achieving the plan's objectives.

The Government's determination that the infrastructure programme will be delivered is reflected in the fact that last year it set up a Cabinet Committee on Infrastructural Development, including a public private partnership, which is chaired by the Taoiseach and assisted by a cross-departmental team. The Government has already agreed a wide range of measures to streamline administrative, planning and legal procedures, which the committee recommended to it.

While Deputy McDowell raised a number of questions about the plan, he must bear in mind that we are only ten months into its seven year timeframe. The Deputy's questions are relevant. It is very much the IDA's intention to maximise the benefits that will accrue to the BMW regions in terms of what is available there as opposed to the regions Deputy McDowell and I represent. I do not have an assessment of that at this stage.

Amendments to the planning Bill, which the Government has adopted, include removing the statutory prohibition on infrastructural development being carried out pending the outcome of all legal procedures; requiring An Bord Pleanála to give priority to major infrastructural development—

Mr. Flanagan

That is a joke.

Mr. Cullen

The Deputy may say that, but it must be done if we are to deliver this programme.

Mr. Flanagan

Letters have gone out to every developer—

Mr. Cullen

Amendments to the planning Bill also include providing for the High Court to deal expeditiously with legal proceedings in major infrastructural cases; that a person seeking judicial review must show a previous interest in the case unless exceptional circumstances can be shown and allowing An Bord Pleanála to decide on infrastructure projects that cross the foreshore without the need to apply for a separate foreshore licence from the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources.

The combined impact of those steps will lead to a perceptible improvement in the speed with which infrastructural projects can be completed. Work is proceeding on other administrative and legal impediments to the speedy delivery of infrastructure.

The Cabinet committee's focus on infrastructure delivery has also galvanised the implementing agencies who are continuing to gear themselves to meet the daunting challenges they face. They have improved management structures, devoted more resources to planning and are streamlining their procedures to meet these challenges. However, I would be the first to admit that without the necessary public support, no plan could be delivered on time or completely. This is particularly true of the major infrastructural projects envisaged in the national development plan. If there is public opposition to such projects, it will be very difficult to implement them. Consequently, it behoves all public representatives to get the message across to the public of the importance of infrastructure to present and future generations.

If we do not have better roads and an efficient public transport system, it will become more and more costly and time consuming to move people and goods, which will inevitably have an adverse impact on regional and national competitiveness. Areas which do not have adequate power supplies or communications infrastructure will not be able to attract modern industries and services and, thus, balanced regional development will not be achieveable. An adequate housing stock is not only a necessary social requirement but also an important determinant of competitiveness. A lack of adequate waste management facilities to cater for waste associated with growth will become a constraint on growth. That point was enunciated here this evening. These are not fanciful speculations but acknowledgments of the reality we face. If we want continued social and economic development at national and regional level, we must provide the infrastructure necessary to support it. That means we will have to build better roads and more houses, improve our health care infrastructure, provide proper waste management facilities and other essential infrastructure. The national development plan provides the resources to do this. I stress all these elements of infrastructure will be constructed with full regard to their impact on our environment, heritage and quality of life.

It is perhaps a common experience that those who benefit from a measure remain passive and quiet, whereas those who are adversely affected are very vociferous in their complaints. Without denying anyone's rights, I plead for a reasoned and balanced debate on infrastructure projects and a recognition that there are independent agencies in place with full power to decide on the planning, environmental and heritage aspect of these projects. In such debates, the views of the general public, locally and regionally, can play a crucial role. In this context, people of influence, be they public representatives, social partners or other opinion shapers, can help the public to identify and express their interests. In particular, they must get the message across to the public that infrastructure projects are essential to future prosperity.

For its part, the Government will strive to ensure that a proper balance is maintained between speedy delivery of necessary infrastructure and the need to address any adverse con sequences it may have on particular communities. There are structures in place to ensure any concerns there may be about the planning, environmental and heritage aspects of infrastructure are fully catered for.

This is the most ambitious plan ever undertaken by the State. Its full and speedy implementation will support continued sustainable growth in the economy and address regional and social imbalances.

With regard to Deputy McDowell's question about motorways, it is the Government's determination to deliver on those within the seven year timeframe of the plan. Built into many of those projects is the possibility of a public-private partnership. I have no doubt that if everyone concerned co-operates such projects will be delivered on time.

Mr. Flanagan

The time strictures on the debate are such that many Deputies will not have an opportunity to express their widespread concern about the lack of action by the Government on the delivery of the national development plan. The Minister of State was extremely defensive in his contribution. The position in An Bord Pleanála is a joke. Is he aware that every appellant and respondent who has papers before the board has received correspondence to the effect that none of the appeals will be held within the next few months? Decisions on applications have been postponed for three months, a further three months and then a further six months. The damage that is doing to the potential for development here is a national scandal.

The Minister of State has the neck to talk about a requirement that An Bord Pleanála must give priority to major infrastructural development, but that is not happening. He also spoke about motorways. Deputies McDowell and Noonan referred to the traffic gridlock in Kildare, which is a scandal. What action will the Government take to deal with the traffic congestion in Kildare while the construction of the bypass is awaited, given that hundreds of thousands of pounds per day are being lost to the economic life of my constituency? Important meetings are being cancelled or rescheduled because people cannot get into, out of or through Kildare. The county council washes its hands of the issue. Trucks and buses are parking virtually in the middle of the main street. The gardaí, the National Roads Authority and the Minister for the Environment and Local Government do not want to know about the problem. The situation is outrageous.

There used to be a tall Garda stationed at O'Connell Bridge when I was a child. He stood on a white bollard and wore a white glove up to his elbow. That fellow shifted the traffic. I want him brought out of retirement and sent to Kildare and paid enough money to do what he did on O'Connell Bridge 30 years ago, to get the traffic moving through Kildare. It is a fairly simple operation. A Garda should be on duty in Kildare town from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. and paid overtime to shift the traffic. Nobody seems to care about the traffic gridlock there.

We have been told that £13.3 billion, a staggering amount of money, will be spent on the BMW regions, yet the Government has not decided on the gateway or growth centres that will be the recipients of this money or the major infrastructural projects that will be provided. They are not mentioned in this plan. The Government refused to bite the bullet in terms of setting out the specifics of this plan. The amount allocated in the plan of £13.3 billion cannot be spent until decisions are made as to what places in the Border, Midlands and Western regions will be designated as growth centres.

The population of Portlaoise is growing at an alarming rate. It is estimated that in ten years' time the current population of the town will have doubled from 9,000 to 18,000 and in a further ten years it will have exceeded 30,000. We cannot cope with that level or development or rate of growth. Every application for housing development is appealed by the Southern Regional Fisheries Board to An Bord Pleanála where there is gridlock because the Government failed to approve the main drainage scheme for Portlaoise. Out of the total expenditure of £13.3 billion allocated for the BMW regions, £550,000 is required for that scheme, but the Government will not make that amount available to enable housing developments to take place in a town in which people, commuters or those who work in the town, have decided to reside.

This plan is moving too slowly. There is not a co-ordinating umbrella body that will produce the necessary impetus to progress these matters. The Minister of State mentioned seven years three times in his speech. A year ago it was five years and six months ago it was six years. Now the Minister of State says seven years three times in his speech, which is a further indication of the long finger approach of the Government.

Mr. Cullen

It was always seven years.

Mr. Flanagan

My county runs the risk of becoming a flyover county. The Government wants a dual carriageway from Dublin to Limerick within the timespan, though movement is very slow on it, and a dual carriageway from Dublin to Cork through the other part of Laois. Mr. Liam Connellan says it will be open by 2006 but we have not been informed if it will be a toll road or where it will be. We cannot get the report of the public inquiry on the Heath-Mayfield bypass. That took place in July but the report still has not been published. It is not in the Department and nobody knows about it. Where is it? This is going far too slowly.

Mr. Cullen

It is with the National Roads Authority.

Mr. Flanagan

The NRA is a non-accountable body which refuses to engage with local public representatives or politicians and which has been given far too much power by the Dáil. The Government should look at ensuring accountability on the part of the NRA.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I ask the Deputy to give way. There are four other Deputies offering.

Mr. Wright

I know it is difficult for the Opposition to recognise the positives in what is happening, but the Minister of State was right to point out that this is a £40 billion programme, £36 billion of which comes from Exchequer funding.

Regarding the last speaker's comments, where one has a county manager and team that is progressive and willing to get on with business, one will see progress. My constituency comes under Fingal County Council and the management team under Mr. Willie Soffe is absolutely proactive and the Fingal area will see the benefits of this plan. Housing, drainage and motorways will be fast-tracked – as quickly as the Ministers make the announcements we have a team in place to deal with them. When we are asked to account for this work in a couple of years we will see the benefits of this plan.

The main thrust of Opposition speeches seems to be what will not be done under the national plan, but I will concentrate on one sector that will benefit from the national plan, the horticultural sector, which is very important to my area. There is a possibility that £40 million will be invested in this industry under the national plan. Subject to clearance under this plan, that industry is waiting for the opportunity to spend that money. The industry is awaiting some capital investment for regeneration. I was told in the past week that the industry was asked by the multiples which supply the main market share here and in the export sector to increase its production by 50%. The industry would welcome the proposal for a 35% capital grant aid for the redevelopment of the area – for new glasshouses – so that it can compete. Some years ago the industry nearly went under due to the price of oil and it was a Fianna Fáil Minister who made sure that the area received natural gas. That allowed this labour intensive industry to compete not only in Dublin but all over the country. The issue some years ago—

Mr. Flanagan

Fianna Fáil Ministers did a lot in north Dublin.

Mr. Wright

It is the one party which has always protected the industry, by making sure energy was available to it and by setting up a horticultural section. When this plan is implemented the £35 million to £40 million earmarked for the area, with the 35% capital grant, will allow the industry to compete internationally.

To be fair to the Opposition, it is not so long ago that it raised the question of how the industry would survive and sought subvention. There is no call for that now because the industry can compete on cost terms. The national plan's proposal will allow the industry to regenerate and develop. I ask the Minister of State to ensure that the funding is provided for those operators with one or two acres and not the multiples. That will allow the industry to develop.

Mr. Sargent

Ba mhaith liom mo chuid ama a roinnt leis an Teachta Joe Higgins chomh maith.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr. Sargent

I listened to the Minister for Finance describe how we were ten months into a seven year plan and how the plan is to achieve sustainable economic growth. Does the Minister of State genuinely believe that economic growth can be sustainable over the long term given that it involves consumption of considerable amounts of national capital, such as oil?

There is a need to look at plan B. This is plan A which basically proposes business as usual except that we need more, more roads and more consumption. One could argue that that is how things will have to be, given the way things are going, but I am looking at plan B. I was elected to look into the future and to see what the long-term prospects would be for this and future generations, but I do not see that in this plan.

I see many breaches of Article B of the Amsterdam Treaty, which refers to balanced and sustainable development – that is not the same as sustainable growth. There are breaches of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and of the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases. It is impossible to comply with the Kyoto Protocol the way this plan is framed, which will land us with enormous fines after 2010.

It would have been better to have spatial planning here first, and while there is spatial planning in the plan, it assumes continued, infinite access by all areas to use of the private car. That is fine for the moment for those who have cars and while energy prices are stable, but the situation will not remain that way. We know congestion costs Dublin half a billion pounds and that health costs are caused by emissions. The rail aspect of the plan focuses on safety, which is laudable. I support that good aspect, but it is inadequate. Deputy Wright can testify that I was turfed off the Balbriggan-Dublin train at Malahide. I did not have integrated ticketing so I could not get on a bus to travel the rest of the way and hundreds of others were in the same situation.

Waste is a significant challenge for the Government, for all Members and for everyone in the country. We must state clearly that incineration and landfill developments should not receive State investment. They should not be assisted because they are at the bottom of the waste hierarchy. In regard to horticulture, I agree with Deputy Wright that there is a need to support that sector. However, the organic growing sector has been badly let down by the Government. In addition, no effort has been made to incorporate the concepts of renewable energy, energy conservation or solar power in the type of houses being built at present. We have missed a major opportunity in that regard.

Mr. Higgins

(Dublin West): Democratic socialists are committed to economic planning, provided it is for the benefit of people and society. It is difficult to be convinced that the Government is serious about economic planning when we have already entered the period governed by the National Development Plan, 2000-2006, and a spatial strategy has not yet been published. This reminds me of Columbus who headed west into the broad expanse of ocean expecting to find India but stumbled across a place he did not know existed. The Government appears to be proceeding in the same way.

I do not agree with the idea of a new city which is being mooted. Balanced regional and county development are what is required. However, what confidence can we have in this Government to draw up a balanced regional plan when we consider what happened with the decentralisation of Government Departments? Ministers grabbed Departments under their control with all the grace of rugby players picking a ball out of a ruck and then raced to the line, be it located in Cahirciveen, Tullamore or Galway West. If we are to see a repeat in respect of the national development plan, let us forget about it.

With regard to public private partnerships, what guarantees are there that private sector interests will live up to the commitment to spend £6.4 billion? What percentage of the £40.5 billion will be invested by the private sector and what percentage will be invested by the public sector?

It is shameful that we are proposing to spend double the amount on the roads as on the rail network. Have we not learned from the mistake of not developing public transport in recent years?

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin

I acknowledge that the national development plan is one of the most important and wide-ranging plans ever presented by any Government. It is important to welcome the positive nature of the plan, particularly the commitment to develop those regions and sections of society which continue to be excluded from the prosperity and development enjoyed by others. Debates of this nature are essential to monitor the plan's implementation and must continue throughout its lifetime. We need to see real progress on the implementation of the plan in the key and critical areas of health, education, child care and infrastructural development.

I will concentrate on one area without which the plan will not succeed. I refer here to child care and the need for a commitment to make real provision in that regard. Under the heading of "Equality" the plan commits £250 million for child care provision in the regional operational programmes. This is but a fraction of what is needed, both regionally and throughout the country.

A report published earlier this month showed the extent of need in the North Eastern Health Board area. There are 884 children on waiting lists for the 213 child care providers in that region, comprising Cavan, Louth, Meath and Monaghan. This is only the tip of the iceberg. It represents the need among those who can afford the limited provision available and does not account for the thousands more for whom current provision is beyond their means. What value development if children are not properly catered for? We must ensure that children receive the best care, preferably by a parent or guardian on a full-time basis or else, where needed, by qualified people whose service is affordable or accessible.

In addition to the resources earmarked in the plan and to those announced last week by the Government, a further commitment is needed which will really show the determination of the Administration to prioritise this issue. I hope the Minister of State and the Minister will report to Cabinet that I wish to propose that the full amount of revenue accruing from payment of previously unpaid DIRT by financial institutions be devoted to the provision of child care. That decision would certainly indicate real intent and purpose. I commend this proposal to Government and urge it to make it a central part of the forthcoming budgetary measures.