Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

In recent years, much money has been wasted on public projects. We are all familiar with the Cavan joke: "€3,000 for me, €3,000 for you and €3,000 for the project." Whether they are large or small, projects always seem to cost the State a lot more money to carry out than the private sector. We must ensure that value for money is achieved by setting targets and penalty clauses.

The Minister referred to the spatial strategy and getting our road network right. While I do not wish to score political points, the spatial strategy has been somewhat like the decentralisation programme — a little bit for everybody in the audience. The only way the spatial strategy will work is if we develop and build up a few areas, such as Galway being the western hub and Cork the southern hub. The country is too small to have 20 or 30 areas identified as centres in the spatial strategy. Decentralisation will work if a critical mass is achieved. In that way, there will be no difficulty with promotion or people changing jobs. One can see it working in private industry where it is difficult to get a company to locate in peripheral areas, irrespective of what grants are in place. Such companies do not have access to the human resources they require more than anything else. We need to go back to the drawing board in this regard.

The Minister referred in his speech to bad planning applications, which are a hobby-horse of mine. Perhaps we should set up a website called ratemyagent.ie. When the Minister sits down at home at the weekend and is thinking of things to do, he might consider drawing up a guide for local authorities to hold a day-long seminar for agents and show them how to go through the process. We all know that if we see the name of a certain agent on a file, that file will cause trouble for the planner, the agent, the applicant and us, the public representatives. We should streamline the work of agents and let them know what is required with regard to basic practice, because this is a problem we encounter every day.

The Minister spoke about restructuring An Bord Pleanála. I presume this section will deal exclusively with the major infrastructure projects. The Minister should not be afraid to be flexible if the restructuring is not working. When the Eastern Regional Health Authority was broken up into three areas, speakers in the House agreed this would be great for delivering services to the people, but it turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. If the Minister finds the new structure of the board is not working, he should not be afraid to change it. He could perhaps include in the Bill a process of re-evaluation after 12 or 24 months to ascertain how the new structure is working and, if necessary, make changes.

The issue of electrical transmission lines has caused much difficulty for landowners, particularly in recent times, given current concerns and guidelines not to site residents within a certain distance of transformers. I know individuals who have suffered on their home land. There should be greater communication between the ESB and residents. In a recent example, foreign workers for the ESB who spoke no English arrived to carry out work at a site. When a local resident who knew nothing of what was happening went to ask them what they were doing in his field, he could not communicate with them.

The Minister referred to gas pipelines. Chemical or pharmaceutical plants have a water outlet through which they dispose of water into the normal watercourse. In other countries, a system operates whereby the water outlet is upstream of the inlet. We should consider including this measure in our planning law because it would put an onus on the operators of factories to ensure that the water going through the outlet is clean because they would later reuse the water.

I agree with the concept of including the private and public sectors, although the spokesperson for my party had reservations in this regard. The private sector should have access to this process as well as the public sector.

The Minister referred to the implementation of Transport 21. I hope he will use his influence so the upgrade of the N81, as outlined in Transport 21, is carried out. It does not have to be complete before May 2007 but it should be carried out as soon as possible. Perhaps the project should be extended a little southwards.

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