Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy asked some fair and good questions and he touched on some really important issues. One of the benefits of setting out five-year capital ceilings is that it gives Departments certainty in terms of the envelope they will have, rather than on a year by year basis. While the national development plan did set them out over the last number of years, we will do so for the next five years as well. This gives an important level of certainty.

It can be slow to deliver capital projects in Ireland for a whole range of reasons. I do not think procurement is the most significant element of it. I think it is about the legal challenges that may occur at design stage and planning stage and the regulatory hurdles that need to be overcome. As part of the review of the NDP and the ongoing work of my Department which is responsible in overall terms for the delivery of capital projects, we will consider ways in which we can improve the system. I recognise that that needs to be done. The Deputy gave the very good example of flood schemes. We have new EU regulations in terms of environmental impact assessment reports. We need to have a proper process in place to ensure that projects can progress in an appropriate manner and as quickly as possible. As far as I can see, funding is not the constraint much of the time. Rather, the issue is ready-to-go projects, particularly in the public transport area. We do not have any major public transport project ready to go if we had the funding to finance it. We have to keep advancing projects through the system to make sure that they are ready. There are various blockages in the system and I agree with the Deputy that more work needs to be done. My Department will lead that work as part of the NDP review and its ongoing work.