Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

One thing about this committee is the diversity of opinion among its members. I thank Deputy Shanahan for the Bill. It will be the first of many pieces of legislation in this area. We are starting from a very low base. There are many things we need to correct, including bringing expertise back into the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform and other Departments that we have lost because we have contracted out so many decisions that affect people to those who are unaccountable.

I know what the Deputy means when he talks about expenditure per capita. He rightly makes his case, but if we keep being driven by population numbers, we will never have what we need to have in rural areas that have been depopulated as a result of Government policy over the years. We need to look at this on an all-island basis. I do not want to open up the discussion again, but has any analysis been done between North and South? Data is key? Officials from the CSO will appear before us in a couple of weeks' time. The lack of transparency and the lack of congruence between the data available, North and South, for us to be able to carry out objective analysis of many of these things impede where we need to be, regardless of whether it is the all-island rail review or the many other matters, such as climate change, that we need to tackle on an all-island basis.