Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming in. I also thank Mr. Cussen and Mr. Hogan for attending.

I was in Sligo when the Minister's predecessor, Deputy Coveney, launched the plan and invited people right across the country to make submissions. I visited seven counties. I went to Donegal, Sligo, Cavan, Mayo, Roscommon, Galway and Leitrim to listen to people outline what they need for the future. There is a fair onus on this plan for the simple reason that it will cover the next 20 years. It is a defining time. The reality is that we either do it right now or certain parts of rural Ireland will be forgotten. This is the responsibility that is on our shoulders.

We are not happy with the framework. What we need to do is make it right. That is the only way one can solve something. We can give out about it and we can jump and down, but all one can do is make it right.

I have this to say about whoever is responsible for writing it.

Deputy Penrose talked about consultants earlier. Consultants need to be removed from every room in the country because, first, they are robbing the country and, second, they do not know the nuts and bolts of this. They do not realise what is happening. These people live in a fantasy world compared with some people who live in rural parts of Ireland.

If the Minister of State looks at a copy of the map Deputy Smyth has, he will see there is not one city in the Republic north of a line drawn from Dublin to Galway. Are we going to leave the likes of Sligo and Letterkenny without city status or build that area up? These places are not in my constituency but they are important. The first thing we are doing is putting in a foundation with this plan, but if we do not build houses right and have the foundation right, we will go nowhere. The Minister knows what we need; he was party to the talks on the formation of a government. The whole western arc was taken out of the TEN-T funding in 2011. He remembers that. It was put into the programme for Government, but the Minister, Deputy Ross, is more concerned about drink-driving than ensuring TEN-T funding for that area, which would help it economically.

We need to tie up with Northern Ireland. The A5 from Derry to Aughnacloy will be completed. A spur can be built out of that to the M1 if we lay down our plans for the future. This is being done in bits but it is like draining one field when the whole farm is wet. There is no point to it. It is like hopping. Bits are being built from Mullingar, but a road needs to be brought down along the west from Mullingar to Westport and from Carrick-on-Shannon to Sligo. The new road that is being opened, the M6 to Tuam, is great. It is opening access to the area. The Minister of State was right in saying earlier that one cannot catch some business person by the neck and tell him or her to go somewhere else. However, someone stuck behind a 35X tractor for an hour driving around Longford will definitely not go there. We also need to build roads strategically in this plan. We are in trouble in Galway, and I do not blame this all on the Departments. Some county councils are asleep and need a wake-up call about what is going on but others need resources. I noticed the Minister of State talked about maintaining regional and local roads and strategic road improvement, but the councils do not get the money. They are about 40% down. We cannot maintain them.

The Minister of State talked about the CAP. The CAP needs to shift the 20% of farmers getting 80% of the money in the next three years. We are seeing land abandonment at present. The Government needs to put the full infrastructure in. I know the Government cannot do this on its own; it will need regional plans afterwards along with local plans for towns.

We all know the problems Dublin has. I question one thing I saw in the plan. We are dreaming this dream, or perhaps it is Transport Infrastructure Ireland, that we will spend €3 billion in ten or 12 years' time on building an underground way out to the airport. I went out that way the other day. I telephoned Iarnród Éireann and was told that for €200 million, we could build a spur from Malahide. Half a loaf is better than no bread, but we are not doing this for Dublin. Galway is losing jobs, according to the statistics that have come out, because of traffic problems. Tree huggers have been blocking developments in this regard for years and years, and we need to do something about them as well. There are people objecting. The Apple data centre in Athenry is being held up, as was the outer ring road in Galway. How many more roads will be held up? Someone who could be from the bottom end of Waterford will object to something being built in Galway. This cannot go on. It is the Minister of State's Department that can change some of the rules in this regard. I know it cannot do everything, and I am not saying that, but we must have a vision for the next 20 years of the kind of country we want. When the plan comes out in spring, do we want a road from Dublin to Mullingar? Do we want a proper road from Mullingar to Westport? Are we going to join up with, and talk to, the Northern officials? Will a road be built out to Aughnacloy? Are we going to lengthen the road in the Minister of State's area heading towards Monaghan? Will a road be built from, say, Donegal to Sligo? Are we going to make a city out of Sligo? Are we going to make a city out of Athlone or are we going to keep tilting everyone back to Dublin? That is the problem at present. We need the Cork-to-Mallow road completed to serve the southern part of the country. We need to know shortly whether something like the Luas will be built in the likes of Galway, Cork or Limerick. We must look 20 years ahead. Will we have a rail corridor in the west of Ireland? If such a rail corridor is not in the plan, we better cut to the chase. There is a debate going on about greenways and rail, but we need to know where we are going for the next 20 years because people will make decisions based on this plan and the Minister of State and his officials have an opportunity to get this strategically right.

This plan is an aspiration for the simple reason that the last one was published in 2002 and I still see many parts of that plan in respect of which nothing was ever delivered on. No one will ever say that everything will be delivered on, but one thing we need to see is whether the Minister of State will include these projects in the plan. If we do not do this, if we do not build the foundation of what is to be put in the plan now, we are as well just to forget about it.

Another problem I have concerns rural housing, and I ask the Minister of State's officials to look at this. Some of these do-gooders do not understand that if one does not have a son or a daughter building, the local national school will be in trouble down the line because one needs a chain of children to keep a small school open in rural Ireland. The shop in the local area needs to be kept open. We are not looking for anything for nothing. People in rural Ireland are paying for everything but, ultimately, all they are looking for is a little fair play. This is not to have a go at the Minister of State or anything like that. What I am saying to him is that this is an opportunity to lay the foundations now. However, if the plan comes out the same as it was the last time, we need to make concrete decisions to the effect that from now on this is what we will do for the next 20 years. If these projects are not in the plan, we may as well give up talking about rural Ireland.