Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The national planning framework must include measures to minimise the effects of Brexit on communities on both sides of the Border. Border communities, including those in my own county of Donegal, are a key concern of the framework. I acknowledge the input of officials in the Department and of all local authorities along the Border who looked at this in terms of a vision and in terms of the practical and pragmatic approach to joining up infrastructure, including roads, broadband, education and health infrastructure. The Government is anxious to ensure that every aspect of the framework is fully Brexit-proofed to protect these communities and to help maintain peace and stability on the island.

With the peace process, barriers came down. We have all seen the huge benefits of that. Nevertheless, Brexit continues to raise concerns. After the Good Friday Agreement, cross-Border contacts that had been lost for generations returned. Freedom of movement of both people and goods has increased massively since the removal of checkpoints and the reopening of roads. Lives saved since the ending of violence translated to lives saved by the sharing of health care services such as the coronary and cancer care units at Altnagelvin in Derry towards which Irish taxpayers contributed upwards of €20 million to guarantee 30% bed provision for patients from County Donegal with regard to breast care. The Government supports the work of Donegal Country Council and of Derry City and Strabane District Council to create jobs on both sides of the Border. Infrastructure is vital for the north west and the Border region and the development of the A5 is the key regional priority. As the Taoiseach said recently in Derry, there is no point in just doing the A5 if we do not also include the road connections into and within Donegal, including the connections from Lifford to Letterkenny and Lifford to Sligo, with bypasses of Stranorlar and Ballybofey. With such infrastructure will come more investment in our region and more prosperity for all our citizens, developing our country and the island as a whole in a planned, structured and visionary way. That is what the national planning framework is all about.

There are still many unknowns about Brexit but we cannot allow the return of anything which prevents the free movement of goods and people across the Border. As many people in the Derry region have pointed out recently, in particular from the Foyle Port, they will not allow their businesses or their future to be defined by Brexit. We are building more bridges in education. It makes sense for our third level institutions to work together with Letterkenny IT, Ulster University at the Magee campus, and the North West Regional College collaborating across the Border. This is something I want to see happen into the future. In just over 20 years, there will be another million people on our island and we must start planning for that now. The national planning framework and capital plan are the blueprints for 8 million people living on this island by 2040. Future connections, North and South, must be taken into consideration to build a sustainable health, education, transport and economic society on the island.

Following months of public consultation, detailed discussion before the Oireachtas housing committee and extensive debate in the Chamber today, the national planning framework will allow the Government to set out a vision for the planned and structured development of the nation in the critical two decades ahead. The past can sometimes be used to define or set the parameters of where we will be in future. Past performance is sometimes used as an indicator of future performance. We had a national spatial strategy, some parts of which worked, but there is always ongoing criticism of reports and templates that they became a big noise on announcement day with the practical implementation and follow-up being suspect. A vacuum may be identified in the aftermath. There has been extensive public consultation and we are having this cross-party debate in the House. All of us are constituency representatives and we are all thinking of projects in our own constituencies. This document, however, must go wider than that and consider where people will be living and working in future, as well as the changing nature of work.

For example, we have more than 2,000 companies in the financial services sector in County Donegal. A lot of that work can be done remotely. We have a national broadband plan and people will be able to work from home. There are people from my county working in places like Singapore, New York and Dublin who will decide, if the proper infrastructure is in place, that it is time to move back. The missing piece of the roads infrastructure jigsaw on the map of the island of Ireland is the lack of access to the north west. We have great infrastructure up the M1 from Dublin Port Tunnel. We must maintain a focus on the N2 right into Monaghan and on the A5. With the help of a pragmatic approach and the making of the right decisions over the next few months, work on the A5 will start. We must then look at joining up the other bits.

My county has been in economic and political isolation for too many decades. We are enjoying a new positivity because of the Wild Atlantic Way. I meet people from the Ceann Comhairle's native county of Kildare, for example, who tell me it is their first time in Donegal and that it is a beautiful county. There were obvious reasons people did not go to Donegal in the past. We have moved on from that. We are building on the positivity and the Wild Atlantic Way. We are building on a new wave of job creation in industry that was previously restricted to a small part of our region. We know that we cannot do it in isolation as a county in future. We will continue to work with our neighbours in the Derry-Strabane council. They have a joint appreciation that Derry city is the driver and engine not only of Derry and Strabane but of the region generally, which has a population, if one includes counties Fermanagh and Tyrone, of approximately 500,000.

Future services will be dependent on critical mass and we have that in the region. If we continue to use a line on the map as the determining factor for future service provision, we will repeat the mistakes of the past. We have a wonderful opportunity in the times in which we live. We have peace, which is still fragile, and prosperity but it is still a better place than before. Now it is about a peace dividend, which means jobs and investment in order that people see a result. The way to develop the region is to build the critical infrastructure and that is why I will continue to emphasise the importance of Derry city being a key component of this framework.

I appreciate that other plans considered towns, critical mass and different gateways and hubs. They used a different language but we have a city driving the development of Donegal. There is urban sprawl into east Donegal. A total of 30% of the labour force in Seagate in Derry comes from my county, while 25% of the employees in the Foyle port company come from Donegal. It works the other way as well. Up to 15% of the staff in Pramerica in Letterkenny, whom the Minister of State has met, come from across the Border. There is a natural movement of people, which began decades ago. However, following political partition, economic isolation and neglect and political neglect down the decades, we have to face up to the reality that there is a region that has produced the blueprint for the future. The work that Derry City and Strabane District Council and Donegal County Council have done can provide the fundamental cornerstone for a better region and better way of life to attract people home and to provide solutions for the gridlock in Dublin. If the A5 is upgraded, someone could leave Dublin via the Port Tunnel and travel along the N2 and A5 to Letterkenny in two and a half hours. The critical message is we can provide a solution in the north west for much of the gridlock in this city.

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