Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In Professor McHale's analysis, we will not catch up on seven years of effective pause in capital investment in key infrastructure. There is something highly ironic about the situation whereby I go to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, to discuss key infrastructural issues in my constituency that impact on the national and regional picture. Professor McHale talks in abstract terms whereas we, as politicians at the coalface, deal with practical issues. I live in Macroom which is one of the biggest bottlenecks in the Cork-Kerry road link. The project to build a new bypass is ready to go, yet the Minister, Deputy Howlin, has told me that while he has the money to spend and there was never a better time, he does not know whether he can do it because we have all these rules that say "no". The project has the most favourable cost-benefit analysis of any project on the NRA's books. This is because of seven years of paused investment. Regarding the N28, the relocation of the Port of Cork, the Jack Lynch tunnel, the Dunkettle interchange or any other project people around the country could list, Professor McHale's analysis is that we will never catch up, that while we have a level of capital investment now, we will never be allowed to make up for the seven years' lost time. Bearing in mind this and the requirement to maintain some degree of social cohesion, it has been an admirable characteristic of the endeavour, although some might disagree, that we have tried to bring as many people as possible with us in the economic recovery and have a degree of fairness.

I come from the view that we run our household pretty tightly - that we do not go mad. I acknowledge the sins of the past, but there is a degree to which one must provide for repairs to the leaking roof. However, Professor McHale is saying that one must live with the continuous drip from the ceiling because one will never get around to repairing the household properly. I think this analysis is consigning people to never making up for the lost years in meeting the requirement of a modern economy for broadband, proper infrastructure, health services, hospitals and schools. At a political level I do not think one can sell that message. I think we have to sell hope as well as fiscal responsibility.