Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are two points. The Deputy is right on one point. I need a bigger pipe. I need more projects going through at initiation stage and being animated at the start. I refer to places like Donegal, Gaoth Dobhair, Crossmolina, Enniscorthy, Adare and Limerick. More projects must be animated at a much earlier stage so that if something gets blocked, there is something there to pick up the slack. However, there is another problem. If four projects fall out of the courts at the same time, like Bandon, Douglas and a whole clatter of them in the same year, and I do not have money to meet them, I have a bigger problem. If I do not have the €119 million that I am asking for - I am only plucking a figure from the sky - and they all fall out of the courts at the same time, or there are judicial reviews, objections or delays, I will have a problem if they are all ready and waiting to start, but I have not asked for the funds and the Oireachtas has not voted for it for me. A great part of my problem is that I am at the mercy of objectors. I do not know if a scheme mentioned earlier by another Deputy will end up in judicial review - it may not. If it does not, happily I have money to fund it and it can start immediately. I do not know if a scheme that is currently in judicial review in Cork will come out of that in June, in which case it can start and I have funds to allocate to it. I am a victim of a planning system that is completely and utterly unfit to deliver massive infrastructural projects. The Chairman might say that a Minister of State is criticising the Government - absolutely. I have a planning process that is completely unfit to deliver major flood infrastructure to the State. As a result, I am here asking for money that I do not know if I can spend, but I need in the event that the planning process is able to deliver to me. That is my biggest problem. I need a bigger pipe at the start to shove through more so that if one gets stuck I can pull something else out at the end.