Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

There can be no doubt regarding the level of need in the context of building a successful infrastructure for the future. In every area one might care to mention, be it buses, houses, hospitals, ports or schools, there are huge needs and these continue to grow. The real issue that arises in respect of the NDP is whether the Government has the capacity to deliver. Judging by its record, one would have to strongly question its capabilities in that regard. For example, the Government produced the health strategy in 2001 and less than 30% of it has been delivered to date. Less than 40% of the targets relating to the housing strategy produced in the context of the previous NDP and other policy statements have been met. Up to last year, less than 50% of the projects under the roads programme had been delivered. Less than 25% of the commitments relating to the programme of PPPs introduced in the previous NDP have materialised. Only 40% of what we were promised under the water programme has been delivered. In the area of e-commerce, only 15% of what was envisaged has been delivered. Ireland is now one of the worst countries in Europe in the context of access to broadband as a result. The list goes on. Less than 7% of the commitments made under decentralisation have been met.

Where are the grounds for believing that the Government has suddenly changed and that it can deliver strategic planning when it has failed to do so for a decade? It has also failed to deliver in areas of great importance, such as health and housing, to the people we are here to serve.

This plan is not a gift from the Government. It will be funded, in its entirety, out of taxpayers' money. Approximately €120,000 for every family will be invested in the plan. That is a substantial amount. A major change is required in the way strategic planning is carried out in order that we will not look back in five or six years and behold the same litany of failed promises that marked the end of the previous NDP.

There is a serious lack of strategic vision underpinning the Government's approach to planning in areas in which we face major challenges. Anyone who engages in even a casual examination of the economic situation could not fail to perceive the looming challenge we face in remaining competitive. A total of 50% of IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland jobs that were in place five years ago have since disappeared. That is a massive rate of attrition. There has been a decline in manufacturing and the once unassailable elements of manufacturing, such as Pfizer and Motorola, are being affected. Huge infrastructural gaps are emerging and we have fallen behind in areas that are crucial to our competitive sectors. The National Competitiveness Council outlined some of the areas in which we are lagging and its statistics are startling. Out of 30 countries, Ireland is 28th in respect of port infrastructure, 26th in respect of energy infrastructure and 23rd in respect of broadband infrastructure. These infrastructures, which are the responsibility of Government, are the bases on which we seek to compete. Ireland has not, despite the Minister's boast regarding €55 billion of investment in infrastructure, kept pace with other countries and has, in fact, lost ground.

We have also failed to address the serious strategic challenge of breaking the link between economic growth and increases in carbon emissions. This matter was highlighted again recently when the latest figures showed that Ireland's emissions are increasing more rapidly than those of any other country. We have manifestly failed to deliver on our Kyoto commitments. In addition, we are repeating the worst errors of urban sprawl. The Minister stated we must make changes in this regard but the Government has not put forward any solid policy changes that will transform patterns of development. Developers choose the cheapest greenfield sites, pay no regard to the lack of transport infrastructure and commit people to endless commutes that are extremely burdensome in terms of resource use. In so far as the Government has done anything, it has been to encourage more one-off developments, which it knows run contrary to what it is supposed to be promoting under a policy that addresses the issues of urban sprawl.

The Government permitted tax reliefs that did not focus on strategic priorities to remain in place in the construction sector long beyond their sell-by dates. No cost-benefit analysis was carried out until the Minister entered office. The Government allowed these reliefs to remain in place for at least five years too long. The most recent figures indicate that approximately €5 billion in taxpayers' money was used to fund the reliefs to which I refer. The subsequent cost-benefit analysis — I give credit to the Minister for undertaking this — showed that much of this money was wasted.

The review of the previous plan, which is contained in its successor, does not, by any stretch of the imagination, represent an honest appraisal of what happened on the last occasion. It reads more like a PR brochure than anything else. For example, reference is not made to underperformance on projects, failures in respect of cost control, the failure to carry out proper cost-benefit analyses in order to rank projects and apply a strategic framework in respect of the choice of such projects, the manifest failure to put in place accompanying policy change in some areas to ensure we obtained value for money from the investments made, or the fact that the national spatial strategy arrived as an afterthought. As the ESRI's mid-term review illustrated, no change was made to the strategic direction of the NDP after the spatial strategy was introduced. These are serious issues and I do not know how it was possible to produce a chapter which was supposed to review the past but which failed to address any of them. If we are to learn anything, we must examine the mistakes that have been made. There is no evidence that the latter has happened.

In my view, a new NDP must operate within an entirely new framework. As stated previously, we must publish the cost-benefit analysis before we commit to allocating the funds. The Minister is wholly wrong in keeping information in this regard secret. There must be a gateway system under which people will be held accountable for the performance of these projects. This must be done in public in order that we can see what is happening.

A new set of strategic priorities is required. I do not see any evidence that breaking the link between carbon emissions and economic growth, addressing the decline we are experiencing in competitiveness or planning sustainable communities are to the fore in this plan. No strategic thinking has been done in respect of these serious challenges.

It is extraordinary that under the programme for climate change contained in the plan, only one sub-programme of investment is mentioned, namely, the €270 million to buy carbon credits. In other words, the only purpose of this programme is to delay the serious decisions that must be made in this area. In the meantime, areas in which there are many opportunities to perform better are being left unfunded.

We must get to grips with this matter in a way that the Government has failed to do. This is a major global challenge and the countries that are slow to respond — Ireland is proving to be one of them — will pay a much higher cost. There is a clear advantage for those who move quickly to respond to these challenges. However, nothing is happening in that regard in this country. We have made no efforts to make our patterns of development sustainable. Under those patterns of development, approximately 500,000 homes were built in the past decade. The level of emissions per house, even when one adjusts for climate, is almost double the EU average. The emissions per car are 50% higher than the European Union average. Despite our natural advantage in renewables we are trailing in the development of renewables. There is no evidence that the Government is addressing this in a serious or concerted way. The plan states that the Government wants all developed countries to commit to a cut from 50% to 30% by 2020. It is hypocritical to call for that when we are not taking the measures at home that must be taken to address that problem.

We must get real on this issue. Firm targets must be set as to what we will achieve and decisions must be made such as, for example, that on the interconnector. There is no public money committed to the interconnector. Everyone knows that is the key to expanding the renewables in our generation sector but there is no commitment to the date or the money. Reference was made to 2012 but there is no explicit commitment of funds.

Energy research will be a key element if we want to make our homes, traffic and systems more energy efficient. Less than €1 in every €40 goes to energy research. It is near the bottom of the list. The Minister referred to the shift to public transport but under the next programme five times as much money will be spent on road as on rail. We must set serious targets, which are absent, and have policies linked to those targets. That thinking, which is the core to a proper strategy, is not in evidence in the plan.

Competitiveness is the other major area we must square up to but I do not see it in this plan. There is reference to all the traditional sectors taking the lion's share of moneys that will go under enterprise, research and innovation funding but there are no plans or programmes for the areas where we must look to the future — financial services, software, biotechnology, audiovisual, nanotechnology and so on. Those are the areas where we ought to develop the programmes of the future that will provide employment for the young people in our schools now. Instead, the programmes are for long-established sectors and they dominate the moneys.

On the research funds, it is right that we should invest more in this area but only €1 in every €5 of the research budgets the Government is providing will be for enterprise-led research and innovation. That is the defect because even foreign owned companies are devoting less than 1% of their turnover to research and development where best practice would indicate it should be close to 4%. Irish companies are not much better in that regard. We must drive the notion that industry and networks of employers must be at the heart of these research and development strategies. It is all very well to fund programmes in universities but we must ensure that trickles down to where it is needed but we have failed in that regard. A recent Competitiveness Council report stated we are one of the only countries that has seen a deterioration of the linkage between the ivory towers-type university and enterprise in research and development. We have deteriorated while all the other countries are improving.

The other major challenge is broadband coverage. The metropolitan area networks have not achieved the reach intended. They are not reaching ordinary homes. They may be available to multinational companies in these towns but they are not getting the broadband reach. Northern Ireland made the investment and decided to opt for 100% coverage. There are no new ideas in this national development plan about how we will achieve broadband coverage on the required scale. Everyone realises we cannot continue to lag at the bottom of those league tables.

I am disappointed in this NDP. There is much that is welcome. No one will complain about commitments to social and affordable housing or any of the other areas but we must get the framework right. We must build social and affordable houses in sustainable communities and we must have strategic thinking about the development of areas, including schools, but that has not happened.

On the strategic development zones, about which Deputy Burton would know more, Adamstown is the only case where the SDZ power has been used. We are not using the planning framework we passed in this House to impose the coherent and sustainable patterns of development we need.

This is a case of one cheer for the NDP. I welcome the investment commitment but we have much to learn about taking a strategic approach to the use of public money, ensuring we deliver value for money and the necessary changes in key areas. We must face up to the challenges in competitiveness and climate change early. If we do not, we will face them at huge cost.

See this speech in context