Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

On the more serious issues, Deputy Gilmore made a point on the national development plan. The answer, as he knows, is that 20 years ago this country was working on CSO figures which showed that by 2010 we would have a population of approximately 3.4 million if we were lucky, but we have ended up with a population of 4.3 million and going the other way — 1 million more people. Dublin Corporation and other councils worked on the basis that by 2010 we could have 1 million registered vehicles in this country, and while we are not there yet, we have 2.5 million vehicles. We were working on the basis that there might be 1.25 million people working but there are 2.25 million people working. These are the reasons and that is why we have had two successful national plans.

More has happened in the last national development plan and in this one than has happened since the foundation of the State. That is probably because we did not have the money, although the foresight of some of those generations might have seen that, rather than wholesale emigration, it might have been better to try some of the programmes, but they did not do so.

The current plan is an integrated and coherent one. It is a seven-year investment strategy that this Government has put together, like the last one we put together. It sets out a blueprint of economic and social development over its lifetime and it deals with the accompanying quantified investment programmes which aim to achieve high level objectives. It is a broad plan. It is the plan, as housing construction goes down, where we put in more money rather than less. We are developing the spatial strategy. There is the maintenance of a framework of macro-economic and budgetary stability, but we have addressed economic and social infrastructure, we have been supporting enterprise, we have been promoting social inclusion and looking at the all-island economy.

The plan costs €55 billion, which for a country of our size, even at this stage of development, is a massive programme. It is higher in percentage terms than those of any other European country because we need it. It is investment in economic construction. The plan commits us to spend €25 billion in human capital and will result in investment in education and training. A sum of €20 billion is provided for enterprise and €33 billion for social infrastructure.

Mention was made of what is happening in the areas of roads and infrastructure, such as sewerage and drainage. This is where most of the money is going. They all are good contracts, for the economic development of the country and the regions, whether for water, sewerage or roads, and for investment across the island such as the North-South investment structure to improve the road to Derry. It is helping the development of the island but is also good in employment terms. This year construction employment would be a far greater problem if we had not moved to provide those resources. It is helping private sector development in many areas where we have so many projects. We will continue that.

There are in the region of 135 roads projects in one form or another, apart from the considerable stretches that we are building. At last we have got to the stage of building long stretches of road. There are over 40 km in the stretch of road to Cork that will open shortly. There is the road to Athlone, the Carlow bypass, the Waterford bridge and the Waterford road. These are huge contracts, employing large amounts of people. This will drive economic development.

Whatever we do for the next few years, no matter how tight the economy gets, we should stick with that. It is only by doing that back-to-back as this Government and the previous Government have done that we will eventually get that deficit in infrastructure dealt with, but it is happening and we can see it all over the place.

If I was involved in Dublin Corporation's traffic planning committee, this would be one of the matters they would have to deal with. We must face up to what other cities are dealing sooner rather than later. If we are serious about emissions and congestion, we cannot continue the way we have been where everybody drives from A to B regardless, with no restrictions. That was all right when we had 500,000 vehicles, but we have 2.5 million now and the number is rising. We have a population of 4.3 million and we have 2.5 million registered vehicles. I am told with certainty by CSO that we will have 5 million people in 12 years' time. If the number of vehicles increases beyond 3 million, one cannot continue operating with "no entry" zones, particularly in Dublin and cities such as Cork, which is not much different. These are difficult decisions for the city fathers and they will have to be dealt with as they are being dealt with in other cities.

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