Paddy McHugh (Galway East, Independent)

I welcome the publication of the Estimates. The amount of money to be spent in this country next year is enormous by any standards, but there is an imbalance in spending between the east and west. As a Member from the west, who represents East Galway, I must reiterate that my constituency is not getting its fair share of the national cake. I can instance the inadequate investment in roads, water and sewerage schemes, schools, broadband and rail. These are but a few infrastructural areas that have been neglected by successive Governments down the years. In County Galway there is now the scandalous situation where work on 20% of the 25 water and sewerage schemes due to start construction in 2007 will not now commence. There are several reasons for this, many of which are grounded in red tape, which is farcical.

The Department grants initial approval in principle for a project to proceed, after which the local authority concerned must set about employing private consultants to design the scheme. When their preliminary report is complete, they forward it to the local authority, whose officials must vet it. If they are not satisfied, they return it to the consultants who, after correcting any deficiencies, return the documents to the local authority which once again vets them. If they are satisfactory, it passes them on to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government which vets them and inevitably seeks further information from the local authority which must revert to the consultants to elicit the information sought. The consultants must provide it with the information sought in order that it can vet the documents again. If they are all right, the local authority forwards them to the Department which also vets them once again, inevitably seeking clarification from the local authority.

Time does not allow me to complete the hazardous journey that a sewerage scheme must make between the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, the local authority and the consultants, but what I have outlined clearly shows our bureaucratic wasteland. It is an absolute joke that, in the scenario I have described, at consultant, local authority and departmental level the officials vetting the documents for the three bodies are equally qualified. This does not make sense and the Government should sort it out, since it is a waste of time and resources.

I also record my absolute dissatisfaction with the lack of progress on construction of the new N17 and N18 and the long-fingered approach to restoration of the western rail corridor and the delivery of broadband to east Galway.

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