Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 21 September 2016

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Current and Capital Expenditure: Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform

2:00 pm

Photo of Eamon RyanEamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I would love to have the faith the Minister has set out but my experience of dealing with his Department five years ago is that the officials fought tooth and nail to stop the metro that I had fought tooth and nail to retain in the four-year plan before the Department successfully pulled it under the former Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Leo Varadkar. Similarly, I recall going into the Department on numerous occasions and having to fight tooth and nail having come from back from the US, Japan and elsewhere with the latest thinking in terms of where the new clean and digital economies were going. At every turn I was told by some official or other that "We do not think that is right" or "We are not too sure and we are going to wait". The Department needs to step up to the plate if it is fill the boots of Whitaker, which it should aim to do.

I agree with the Minister's assessment that the way to do this is through the review of the capital plan. This needs not only to be scaled up massively but its focus must also to shift away completely from what is currently unsustainable. The current plan has no sustainable direction and, therefore, the scale of change I would seek over the next year and a half of the review is an about-turn, which I do not doubt the Department can do. I do not wish to be too critical of the public service but I am being honest in my assessment. Other former Ministers might give their views.

This is not just a Dublin issue. We have to get this right in all our cities. Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford should come up with their pitches for sustainable investments, particularly in respect of transport, housing, energy and water. These are they key components we need to get right. They should be asked to input those projects into the review but they must be sustainable. If any city thinks that it will be successful over the next 20 or 30 years, which is what we are investing for, by going in an unsustainable direction, which we are doing in every case, then I would question the city authorities and the Departments that are advising them because they are missing out on what is happening in the world.

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