Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We need to remember that this programme is in retrospect. The value of looking back is it tells us what we have done. It does not tell us what we are going to do. It is to be hoped it informs policy in the future as to how we might change that. The NIO's perspective might be more forward looking. The virtue of the Bill, as highlighted by colleagues, is to provide a transparent template so people can see exactly what is happening. The Deputy spoke passionately about the north west, as I am passionate about the south east. To her point about not investing in the regions, we can agree on the latest CSO data. We can see the disparity in the CSO discretionary spending figures in the south east, which mirror those of the north west. That is the value of this Bill. As Mr. Power said, capital investment is the spur that creates economic advantage. That is what we are trying to do. I think we would all agree, especially regional Deputies, that there is a complete imbalance. The idea of this Bill is to try to do that.

I canvassed a number of organisations in a short time to try to understand where people stood. I would like to read out two notes. One is a note I got from Limerick Chamber about the Bill. It stated:

It is incredibly important from a policy implementation perspective for both Ireland 2040 and, of course, balanced regional development, that we begin to produce better data and reporting standards around capital expenditure. This Bill would be an important step forward towards ensuring improved reporting and transparency on expenditure and we hope it is supported.

The other note is from the Northern and Western Regional Assembly, which I think has a conference in the north west today. I wish it the best of luck. Its point, which I will paraphrase slightly, was that, from the assembly's experience in developing detailed regional, evidenced-based policies, submissions and research, it is notably difficult to identify the overall level and composition of public capital investment across the NUTS 2 and NUTS 3 regions and the counties of Ireland.

It goes on to say that such an exercise is possible for certain individual sectors such as, for example, general and research capital investment in higher education institutes through the Higher Education Authority but that it is not possible for other sectors which are key to supporting regional development in Ireland. Whatever about the NIO's perspective, from my sense it is very important that we start from here, which is the best place to start from. Implementing this Bill would be the start. I would hope that if the Bill were to be enacted, it would be revisited again and people would tighten it up and improve on it.

For the purposes of where we are at the present time, and I, like Deputy Conway-Walsh, go into the Dáil and vote for health expenditure of €13.1 billion and I have not a clue what I am saying "Yes" to, I would like something which tells me, even in the past, that the decisions we are making are the correct ones. That is what we hope to achieve by implementing this Bill.