James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy Clendennen. The next time slot is mine. I thank all the witnesses for attending. This is an important part of the committee’s work in relation to competitiveness and other matters. We have just returned from an important visit to Japan. It was just a few days ago, and not much happened in the political scene in our absence. I found it interesting that Japan has some of the best infrastructure in the world from a regulatory point of view. I refer to how they build infrastructure such as artificial islands to host airport infrastructure, their Shinkansen high-speed rail and the underground system. In Tokyo, the largest city on Earth, with 36 million people, not once were we in traffic. It is a great example of how they do things differently. However, I also found it interesting that, despite all that and even though Japan’s population is declining, the country still faces a huge affordable-housing crisis. People there are working well beyond the Irish retirement age to maintain their standard of living. Like Ireland, Japan is not without problems, but it is interesting to get an international perspective on how things can be done differently. One point that stood out for me on hearing Ms Burke’s contribution was that on political will.

I want to ask a sharp enough question. I have many problems with Ireland’s national development plan and how Ministers and Secretaries General have a sense of internal inertia. They spend so much time producing glossy documents and mapping out plans, but then the actual completion of projects lags behind. It is ridiculous that NDP projects that have been reviewed and reformed six or seven times are still not progressed. This is because they are not funded. I would like the views of both organisations because this is an issue for Chambers Ireland in that it relates to chambers such as Cork Chamber and Cobh and Harbour Chamber, which is very active, and also Dublin Chamber. It would be great to have an insight into political inertia and why we need to deal with it.

I would also like the witnesses to touch on the enormous amount of time consumed by judicial reviews in Ireland’s planning process, where the common good is often outweighed by individual objectors, sometimes on ideological or ecological grounds or on the basis of the impact on their property, etc.