Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

We have a serious public transport deficit both in urban areas, where there is not enough capacity, and in rural areas, which, in many cases, have no public transport at all. For example, in a situation mirrored across rural Ireland there is no Government subsidised public transport available to the people of north and west Donegal connecting rural parishes to larger urban areas. These communities are losing their bus routes one by one due to commercial considerations, as private operators focus on profitable routes. That was always going to happen because they will suck up profitable routes while the Government will not subvent the less profitable ones.

We pay the highest rates for broadband which is the slowest in Europe. The State was recently ranked 17th of the 27 EU member states for broadband access, behind the accession states of Latvia, Estonia and Slovenia. The root cause of this was the decision of the Government to privatise Eircom. Once again, a profitable company was sold off rather than being used to roll out this crucial infrastructure, which has a major impact on competitiveness and economic development across the island.

We came belatedly to research and development and failed to invest sufficiently in it to redress that imbalance. I welcome today's announcement on funding for research and development but I am disappointed that there was little or no mention of the need for investment in ICT in secondary schools. In transport, energy, information and communication technology, Ireland's infrastructure lags well behind that of comparable OECD countries.

I am pleased to see the Minister's commitment to improving infrastructure. However, as the roll-out of projects under Transport 21 falls far behind schedule, there remains some concern that Departments are purposely slowing down the roll-out of capital projects under the national development plan in order to reduce budgetary pressures in the year ahead.

This was not an innovative budget and there was no radical edge to it. The Government welched on the chance to take some exciting steps on child care, education and obtaining real value for money. I had expected significantly more from the budget. Over the course of the summer we all appreciated that the Minister for Finance, aided by other Ministers, was deliberately damping down budgetary expectations, and with considerable effect. Media speculation clearly indicated that a harsh budget was in store, whereas we got a neutral budget. People may think that because it was neutral it is not bad, but we should examine the missed opportunities for innovation and infrastructural development, as well as the educational and health deficits. However, when Ministers and their agencies are not accountable, how can we expect any significant developments from the Government in terms of providing economic leadership? It simply will not happen. The budget was a disappointment and I rest my case.

See this speech in context