James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is good to have the Minister with us for this discussion. I want to make a number of points. We have been in government since July 2020.

Since the Minister has held his portfolio, and this is not a reflection on him but on the system we all have to deal with, not a single kilometre of new rail line has been laid in the country. This is a reflection of the chaotic planning system we have. We had the head of An Bord Pleanála before the Committee of Public Accounts a few weeks ago and we were told that the processing of applications by the board should be at a rate of around 300 decisions being made monthly but that it currently stands at floating between 50 to 70 monthly. Is it any surprise, therefore, that we are where we are? I refer to it taking 20 to 30 years of debate, discussion and misery to try to develop a proper transport system, especially in rail.

The Minister speaks often and eloquently about the modal shift, but in many parts of the country this is just not achievable without putting in the required investment. I am not trying to knock the Minister. I think he is a good man. I do, however, have a deep frustration at the work that has been done by several State agencies, the Department of Transport and all these quangos we have created in an effort to create better public policy, which have resulted in an infrastructural deficit that is so bad it made the front page of the Business Postlast Sunday. I agree fully with that headline. As policymakers and back bench Deputies supporting Ministers like the Minister, Deputy Ryan, and giving them the offices they hold, I think we must be honest about where we are, and it is deeply disappointing.

The other thing I wish to get off my chest is the length of time it is taking the State even to make a decision concerning connecting the main airport in the country to the public transport system. The Minister talks about a modal shift, but the car parks in Dublin Airport are full and this is to do with the fact that in many parts of the country there is no proper alternative to driving a car to the airport. The lack of a heavy rail connection from Dublin Airport to the State's rail service at this stage is something I would almost call humiliating. I refer to how long it has taken us to do this.

I would love to get a sense from the Minister then, and he has been in his role for several years now and he served in the Cabinet before as well, of what it is going to take for civil servants in this country to wake up and deal with the challenges we need to deal with. I say this because we have been so busy talking about them. Ultimately, the Minister and I take the blame in this regard. We are the ones who must go before the electorate and, potentially, lose our seats because of what those voters see as a lack of action. I just wanted to ask the Minister this question because I think it is incredible how slow the pace of delivery is here.

The Minister and I have had our disagreements in the past, particularly concerning the bypass in east Cork, but I will say this to him. At the meeting about the public spending code, I said that it was pretty much a useless instrument to stall and delay projects. I see that reforms are now coming. Two years later, someone has decided we should probably do something about the public spending code. I was talking about this two years ago, and I was nearly laughed at when I made the suggestion. I just wanted to take a minute to highlight this aspect as well and that it is only now that people seem to be realising that it has never been used once to block a project. Yet here we are allowing this process to potentially add an additional year and a half onto getting something from concept to delivery. What has gone wrong? Why are we not able to say that something is needed in the national interest and to go and do it rather than tying ourselves up in knots?