Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)

I commend the Minister and his officials on putting together a multi-year plan. It is very useful. I read through the document in some detail and there are some great ideas in it.

My concern with the plan is that there is no detail which allows me, as a Member of Parliament, to understand why particular things have been allocated. The Minister picked four pillars and there is reference to €200 million and €1 billion. The total amount is €17 billion over the term. However, there is no cost benefit analysis or decision criteria. I cannot find any reference to the projected number of jobs and there is a fairly thin section on that.

I welcome the focus on labour-intensive work, which is exactly right. It is impossible for me to read the document and decide whether it is a good idea because it is essentially a list of ways to spend money. It reminds me of the Fianna Fáil smart economy document which was complete nonsense and comprised a list of vanity projects and a waste of money. There was no strategic thinking. There is strategic thinking in this document but it is missing any details which would allow me, other members of the Opposition or economic think tanks to get under its skin and understand why the Government has made particular decisions and decided certain things should not happen.

The nicely produced document looks like a fait accompli by the Minister and his officials, and he is presenting it to the Parliament and people as what is going to happen. We will discuss this issue in Parliament next week and potentially the following week. Will the Minister immediately release the detail behind these decisions, such as cost benefit analyses, decision criteria and things which were considered and not included, in order that we can have a well-informed debate? Is this a fait accompli? Are we discussing this in terms of input to the plan or is the Minister telling us what is going to happen while we provide general reactions to that?

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