Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Senator raised a range of issues, and while this is a chance to raise them, this is not the budget. Nonetheless, it is a document that will help us shape budgets, and that is what this is about. The Senator is right. We have not always planned, not just for land use management, but for activities or investment. We have seen this take effect in Wicklow, Meath, Kildare, Louth and the greater Dublin region, where people sometimes moved to the area in an unplanned or haphazard way, sometimes as a result of bad zoning. People ended up living there with no services and it took years for the resources to catch up. That is what we are trying to avoid here. If we can plan our land use, we can plan the management of people, their movement, where they are going to live, whether it is going to be in Wicklow, Cavan, Mayo or Cork, why they would be there, and so on. We can then plan the resources to match that.

The Senator mentioned post offices. Part of the reason post offices are closing is that people are not using them. We have to call a spade a spade here. If they were being used more, they would not be closing. We need to find ways to guarantee their usage. That means building villages, towns and cities back up in order that people have an economic reason to be there. They will then use the local services, which will help save health services, post offices, shops, and so on. People point to a town or village and say that years ago it had seven or eight shops. That is because more people were there and had a reason to be there. What we are trying to do with Ireland 2040 is plan in order that people have a reason to live in a certain place and do not spend an hour and a half driving to work. The target is that the majority would have a maximum commute of 30 minutes, and we want to go better than that. Even that is too high. Senator Murnane O'Connor comes from Carlow and I come from County Meath, so I know what it is like to spend two hours in traffic in the morning. That is not a way to live, and we are trying to avoid it by having this plan. However, that will only be achieved that if we set out ambitions for the country over the next 20 to 25 years and then get buy-in from all the State players and local authorities.

We have consulted. We have been at this stage now for two or three years. We have had at least 12 months of formal consultation with anybody who wanted to talk to us about this. We went around the country, including to Carlow, speaking to people of all ages to hear their thoughts about their towns, villages, cities and country. We are trying to join that together and put in place a number of objectives which will be teased down to regional and local level. We have to follow through. We will not be able to target investment, however, without a plan like this with long-term thinking and long-term sustainable goals. Then we win the resources.

I cannot stress this enough. I was involved in the science strategy, Innovation 2020, and the skills strategy. The reason we put strategies in place is to win the money to back them up. People do not always see that connection because we have not always followed through. It is not just because of this Government, or the Government before it , but in general the thinking in this country has moved on. There is a new emphasis throughout all Departments on joined-up thinking, working together department to department and long-term strategies that we stick to. Governments will come and go, so we have to put in place long-term plans. That is the reason that this document reflects the desire that there be cross-party involvement in this in order that there is that long-term agreement on where we are going as a country.

It was mentioned that people do not see the effects of different plans. I often cite Westport as the best example. Westport was a plan over 15 or 20 years that invested more than €150 million into that area. We see the success of it. It did not take a week, however. It took place over 20 years and involved long-term thinking and decision-making that included everybody. It was led by the local authority and driven by local enterprise, with everyone coming together and playing their part. Success will not be achieved in any of these towns and villages unless all the agencies step up and play their part, including the Department of Health and the Department of Education and Skills, under the overview of the working groups. A key part of this is urban regeneration and renewal, going back into these towns and villages where there are brownfield sites and empty spaces that are not utilised. It is a case of having a conversation with all the State agencies, including the Department of Health, asking them what they need in the future, whether they will want the buildings that are available, and what services they want to plan for each town and village, following which we can allow for it in our building usage and our land usage.

Development plans need to go into that level of detail, actually going street by street and asking what is needed. McAuley Place in Naas is a perfect example. It is an old convent that has been reutilised to provide an option for elderly people to come and live in the centre of a town. It is perfect for an older person who does not want to live on his or her own in a rural house, or a large house at the edge of a town or estate, but wants to be near company and services. Living at McAuley Place, elderly people can walk the streets, avail of all the services and engage with the community. It is a perfect example of this thinking, cited in the published strategy, and there are other centres working just as well. That is the kind of thinking we have. The question is how to achieve that in all the towns and villages. It has to be put down on paper or we will not get there.

Carlow Institute of Technology and Waterford Institute of Technology were mentioned. It is a pity that communications broke down between those two ITs in recent years. Had it not happened, we would probably be further on in our development of a technical university in that area. In this plan, however, we recognise the desire to see technical universities rolled out. The passage of legislation through the Dáil that will give options to ITs in Carlow, Waterford, Athlone, Blanchardstown, Tallaght and Dublin to come together is being prioritised at the moment.

There is a logic to that. We recognise the necessity of developing our skills and talent. The Senator is absolutely right. Job creation and winning investment come down to talent. It is not down to having a Minister or Minister of State. We might like to claim that is the case but it is not the way it works. It is about investing in talent and having access to that talent. That is why the greater Dublin region might win more jobs in some cases at the moment. There are nearly 2 million people living in the area, so investors have access to people with the education they need. If we had proper regional development, those skills would be available throughout the country. There would be access to those skills so investment could also be dispersed around the country. As I said last night, more than 70% of the jobs created in the past year were created outside of Dublin. They are in the regions. All those regional action plans for jobs, which people sniffed at while sitting in here three or four years ago, are working and are delivering jobs to all the regions. That is the key. I have no doubt that with the same logic and long-term thinking, this plan can deliver the same success to our regions. That is what we are trying to achieve and we will do that. The Senator is right, however. It is about the skills.

When the Taoiseach says that half the jobs which will be created do not exist today, he is right. In the past five years, more than half the jobs created have been in new companies with new ideas and new thinking and providing new products and services. That is why we must drive on with our thinking, our innovation, our science and our research and development. As a country, we invest a lot of taxpayers' money in thinking ahead because if we do not innovate, we will fall behind and lose jobs. If we are constantly innovating and driving ahead, we will secure jobs for the future. We are also making sure that we upskill our people to fill the jobs of the future. There is a fear of innovation in most countries because it can cost jobs, and it will cost jobs if we are not on top of it, with it and driving it. As a country we are in the space of long-term thinking. I do not have a fear for jobs because, providing we continually invest in our people and talent, we will also be okay on that front.