Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)

Obviously, infrastructure is the biggest problem in the country now. Recently, I looked at figures that showed the cost of congestion in Dublin now is €336 million and is expected to be €1.5 billion in 2040. The average speeds in Dublin are now less than they were in the 19th century during the horse-and-cart period because infrastructure is becoming so congested. The figure of 294 days from bid to tender evaluation is a damning one for Ireland. One of my biggest frustrations is the Navan-to-Dublin rail line. This is a big project we have been campaigning on for years, and the route selection is taking longer than it took to build the original line in 1852 with picks and shovels. We are spending so much in resources on the front-end of these projects rather than actually the real element, the construction.

On the labour issue, we launched our Operation Shamrock policy yesterday. The idea is to bring back some of the tens of thousands of construction workers who left Ireland and are now working in the likes of Australia and Canada. The Government has spent €170,000 on its social media campaign to bring them home, but there is no evaluation of whether anyone came home as a result of that social media campaign. We do need to take seriously the objective of bringing home some of those workers to augment the 100,000 people it has been said we need for this process. Does IBEC have any comparative analysis in terms of the management, regulation or resourcing of infrastructural projects in other European countries? Taking the rail line example, how many people are put to work on the job of route selection in the planning process of all those elements? Obviously, the more resources put in the front-end, the shorter the time it should take to achieve that front-end of those types of projects.

On regulation, I believe in regulation. It is important. There does seem to be a pendulum effect in regulation, however, and right now Ireland is suffering from it. Is there any comparative analysis in terms of other European countries in respect of regulation? Have any comparative analyses been done examining the State's focus on infrastructure projects and how the private sector does it? How efficient is the State compared to the private sector projects? What impediments are there in law? The A5 road did not go ahead in the North because of the climate action Bill there. Is there legislation stopping infrastructure efficiencies here? Is there an accountability issue? If the private sector had built the national children's hospital, would someone have got fired in relation to it and the amount of money spent on it and the length of time it has taken? Is there an accountability deficit in how the public sector deals with these types of projects? I ask the witnesses to address those questions first.