Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I would not like to think that people across Departments, who are trying to see road, waste and other infrastructural projects go through, would spend their time either looking at EU reports or statistical analyses of an academic exercise that is useless to the people. What they are trying to do is to ensure the removal of any administrative, structural or other blocks in the system in order to allow us spend the money now available to have better procurement and cost systems. They are succeeding in doing that and that is the reason this country now has a capital programme that is higher pro rata than anywhere else in Europe. It is delivering on that programme. Despite all the difficulties and problems of planning and other issues, the group does a good job. It has brought together the roads investment programme which has completed 65 projects, has 25 under way and from 40 to 50 coming through. The group has worked across the agencies to do this and has done the same in areas such as energy, broadband, regional airports and housing programmes.

The team would be conscious of shortfalls and of where we are not achieving targets. It spent some time this year on the third level education sector trying to get co-ordination and co-operation in the sector to obtain better use of the research and development budget. Where it sees deficiencies, it works with the stakeholders to try to achieve better delivery. In fairness, the team has made a significant difference compared to the old way a Department tended to go ahead with a project without any connectivity.

I remember being at a meeting on transport some years ago in which senior people from the NRA, the RPA, CIE and other groups were involved. It was clear that even though they were all involved in transport, they had never met, did not know each other and had never sat down together to have a meeting on integrated transport. We have moved a long way from that. On whether the situation is ideal, nothing is ever perfect, but significant improvements have been made. The reason things did not work so well in the past is because there was no connectivity between the various bodies. In recent years the system is working well across Departments. There is always room for improvement, but cost estimation, planning and structures within Departments are far better than ever.

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