Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank you, Chairman, and Deputy Durkan for facilitating me. I thank Mr. Downes for the presentation.

I welcome that we are hoping to use the national development plan as the vehicle by which we trade our economy out of the Covid pandemic and into prosperity in the future. It is important that the national development plan is done in a balanced way for the regions. We have now found greater opportunities for remote working and all that goes with that. We need to have the infrastructure and the facilities in place in order that people can live and work in their own communities and support their local communities.

In his presentation, Mr. Downes stated that €10.1 billion is in the pot for this year. I refer to the capacity to spend this money. Over the years we have set up considerable regulatory hurdles to be jumped between when a project gets announced and its construction. Many hoops need to be jumped through and many years pass. The feedback I am getting from local authorities is that the public spending code is making it inordinately difficult to get work done. A raft of paperwork and multiple approvals are required.

For instance, with a project for Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, six gateways of approval are required before construction. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage requires four gateways of approval. We have set up a racecourse with many hurdles. We are creating a considerable amount of paperwork. It is leading to a scarcity of technical staff and consultants who are now required to get projects going. I would like to hear Mr. Downes's comments on that.

I also want to talk about value for money. Mr. Downes spoke about getting projects done on time, within budget and to the highest international standard, which is the ethos by which the public work contracts were set up. Information from some Departments shows that the final account for many projects exceeds the tender considerably, including in some cases by double. There are some reasons for that. How is value for money monitored and can we see how that is done?

Is Mr. Downes satisfied that the public works contracts in place for capital projects are still fit for purpose, taking into account some of the very controversial projects that have been discussed in the media, some of which have gone to court? I believe that public works contracts are too adversarial at the moment thereby creating another industry around conciliation and arbitration, tying up public resources and private resources.

I wish to speak about public private partnerships, PPPs. Based on the review of the national development plan, the Department is happy to say that we are getting value for money. I have come across cases where we have ceded control of land to PPP companies. For example, 14 primary care centres were built under PPP. We now want to do some structural changes on one of them in Tuam, County Galway. The process has been going on for three years but because we have given away control of the building and the site for 25 years, we need to get permission from the PPP company if we want to make changes to the building. We also must pay for that to change over the next 25 years. Therefore, a PPP company is now controlling how we deliver our health services.

What if there are changes to our health services? We have allowed ourselves to enter contracts in which we have ceded total control. I know of a case where the PPP company will not allow the HSE to put a water main through a site and into another site. It will cost a hell of a lot more money to bring the water main around the road to service the site for a major project.

We speak about the national development plan of €10.1 billion. We need to have the services in place. Irish Water is a key component. The feedback I get from the industry is that at present, it is an impediment to the construction of the built environment in Ireland on the basis it is not funded properly and it cannot provide the services. We cannot provide the housing or serviced sites that are required because we do not have waste water or water on these sites. It is something I see throughout my constituency. I also see it in other places where, because of limited resources, work in certain areas is being prioritised through, for example, considering centres of population to the detriment of the regions. I would like the comments of the witnesses on all of this.