Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome both Ministers to the committee and apologise for the fact I came in late. I was speaking in the convention centre earlier. I have had a chance to look through the summer economic statement and I have a number of points I want to make and questions to ask. One of the concerns I have with regard to our economy is the inflation factor. I know it is something that has been addressed in the statement in terms of it being noted, the nature of it, that it is a timing thing and that it is hard to predict how inflation will go. I would like to get the Minister's thoughts on where we might be going on that.

The other issue I looked at was the economic balance or imbalance. I was looking at it more from a geographical imbalance and how, in the next five-years, we will make up the difference between the underspend in the regions, such as in the north-west region which has been downgraded in status to a region in transition. It gives us an opportunity to look for more structural funding from Europe on the basis we should possibly be discriminating because of that situation. It is something that is badly needed in that region. While we have many challenges and demands, that is something we need to look at.

The other issue that concerns me is the cost of funding. What I am talking about there is the attractive interest rates at present and how we can potentially harness as much of that in order that we have infrastructure and development money in place at a rate that is attractive and that we take advantage of the situation we have.

I can only imagine that this situation will not remain the same forever.

I am aware that the European fiscal rules have been relaxed. I am sure that at some stage those responsible will look to anchor them in the future. How do we transition back into the fiscal rules? One of the big questions I have on this relates to the climate action legislation and the cost of climate action. Will this be tied into fiscal rules also or will it be outside of the fiscal rules given it is such an important world issue? Do we need to unleash investment in that area?

On housing, one of the biggest impediments towards the acceleration of the building of houses is planning. This is not so much the planning system as the judicial review system. How can this be addressed effectively? While it is not quite stifling development it is delaying the process. This has created an urgency to deliver some silver bullets now. I listened to Deputy Durkan speaking about getting the construction industry to deliver so many thousand houses next year. I would love to see this happening, but the planning situation is causing delays.

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform referred to the public spending code. That code has become very paper oriented. I had a meeting with a chief executive of one of the local authorities and the Construction Industry Federation some weeks ago. The discussions included the length of time from a project being announced to when money can actually be drawn down to start spending. This is one of my fears. Consider the gateways within the public spending code whereby one must get approvals as the project goes along. Transport Infrastructure Ireland has six gateways of approval, the National Transport Authority has seven, housing has four and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media has nine. There is something wrong when we have all these gateways. Doing this work is eating up the scarce resource of technical staff and consultants. These people are not getting other work done. There is a very simple project in Galway city of a bridge to be put across the Corrib for a greenway. It will take three to six months to get it to construction from today. We have overcooked all of this analysis and all of these approval processes. We have created an industry within it. We must come back to more basic ways of getting things done quicker in order that we can spend the money we have and get ahead of the inflation curve.

I compliment everyone involved over the past 18 months of Covid on what has been done for industry, what has been done for people and what has been done for everybody right across the board. It has been exceptional. Our public services have proven to be absolutely top class in the context of that delivery. Hopefully, we are now exiting that period and getting everybody back to work. We have an issue regarding employment. Unemployment stands at 16%. We must look at how we get people back to work in the next year. I heard the Minister speaking on the radio this morning about getting 250,000 people back to work next year. We must simplify this for employers and employees. We must encourage employers to take on apprentices. Not everyone can or needs to go to college. We need to get apprentices out there also. I am aware that work is ongoing in that area with a suite of measures but we need to get it done quickly to see the benefits of it.

With regard to Covid, we are coming to a stage now where we will have a cost in repairing our health and not just the system. I refer in particular to mental health and to the issues around disabilities. We must also deal with hospital infrastructure where it has proven to be deficient through Covid. An investment, not tokenism, will be required in people's well-being. I received a paper from Deputy MacSharry this morning. The Deputy is looking for mental health services to have 15% of the overall health budget. He is right. We need to invest in mental health services now and not wait until the problem gets worse. While mental health or disability services are matters we talk about, and in respect of which we give solace, we do not always take effective measures quickly enough to actually repair them.

I have said a lot already. The final thing I will say is that when it comes to how we budget, we must consider the new ways of working. People will be working remotely and people will have blended working arrangements. There will be a cost involved in that in the context of societal adjustment. There will be a lot of benefits also and we must look at how we can factor this into the budget and into Government policy.