Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister, Deputy Ross, on his appointment. It is great to have two residents of County Wicklow at the Cabinet table. I also congratulate Deputy Andrew Doyle on his appointment as Minister of State. Surely, we will have no problems in Wicklow from now on. I remember the Minister, Deputy Ross, attending Fine Gael meetings in my hotel in Glendalough when he was the chosen one for Fine Gael for Wicklow. It is nice to see that, once again, he has become the anointed one.

The Minister will appreciate my concerns and worries. In his time as a public representative in County Wicklow, transport infrastructure was a live issue, and he will be able to directly relate to this crucial element of Wicklow's development. Who writes the rules of the game? Heretofore, it was said that transport for an area was planned by regional and county planners, considering national spatial factors and other factors, and then the National Transport Authority, NTA, delivered the transport infrastructure. From reading the strategy, it is strongly evident that the NTA believes it is setting the rules on spatial planning for regional and county planning. This is a game changer, and destroys the ability of county and regional authorities to develop in a planned and strategic manner.

The Minister has a track record of tackling unaccountable institutions and I hope he will continue in that vein, now that he has the power of a Cabinet position.

The Minister has referred to the staff in Departments as mandarins. I assure him that, on foot of my interaction with those employed by the National Transport Authority, NTA, and the National Roads Authority, NRA, they no longer see themselves as mandarins, they actually think they are gods.

This document clearly does not serve the requirements for the development of the greater Dublin area. It is more suitable as a Dublin metropolitan strategy. The recently published programme for Government commits to rural development and urban regeneration. We need to fulfil both those needs in County Wicklow. This national transport plan destroys the ability to do so.

Wicklow, as the Minister is aware, has always suffered due to its proximity to Dublin and this has become more evident now as we continue to pile 22,000 people, or 42% of the workforce, on to the N11 and N81 daily, causing major implications for traffic. Wicklow needs to achieve a self-sustaining jobs ratio of 65% to 70% of its working population. This ambition feeds the objectives in the draft Wicklow county development plan, which is consistent with regional planning guidelines, is backed by the local economic and community plan and is supported by the Regional Action Plan for Jobs. Again, this Government has set a target of there being 135,000 jobs outside Dublin by 2020.

The sole purpose of the plan is to address the issue of self-sustaining job ratios but the NTA has no regard for this objective and wishes to escalate the problem more by continuing to drive economic growth into the Dublin metropolitan area at the expense of the Wicklow, Kildare and Meath. The NTA states with respect to lands that are not approximate to the existing committed public transport infrastructure that no significant development should happen on those sites and the distance mentioned is 2 km. The Minister knows the geography of Wicklow very well and I ask him what implications this will have on economic development. All of Wicklow's train stations, with the exception of that in Rathdrum, are located on the coast. There is nothing within a 2 km radius of Bray available without developing the Fassaroe site. The proposed extension of the Luas line has been dropped from this flawed strategy and Greystones, Wicklow town and Arklow will all lose out because of the lack of available land. As for west Wicklow, there is no mention of it in the strategy. It has been completely forgotten.

Another example in this context is that of the film industry. It was identified as a unique industry to Wicklow where Wicklow plays a strong role nationally and has two major studios at Bray and Ashford. After significant evidenced-based research and analysis, the future needs of this industry were identified in the appropriate zoning adjoining the current studio in Ashford, which is proposed in the current draft county development plan.

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