Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I might as well take a stab at it. I thank all the Members of the House for their valuable, insightful contributions to the discussion. As many of them have acknowledged, this is one of the most important issues that this Chamber will consider. We will set down the vision, the ambition and the implementation plan as to how we see our country growing over the course of the next 20 years. I refer to this as the business case for investment in this country over the next 20 to 25 years, which is important. Deputy Gallagher is right to say it affects every Department and every agency. That is why the working group working on this has from the start, certainly from early 2017, brought together all Departments and all agencies and even beyond to ensure we get everyone's view and buy-in to this. This is important from the point of view of implementation.

While the plan is lovely, has great ideas and aspiration and is visionary, many Deputies asked whether it will happen. We have seen plans in the past that have not happened. This time we are trying to get the commitment from everyone to buy in to this. That is why there has been so much stakeholder consultation, a lot of discussion around the country and a kind of travelling roadshow. Even around the table, all the key decision-makers are there because we need them to buy in to this. That is exactly why we are having this debate tonight and why the committee has taken on the role of compiling everyone's issues around this. We have sought to bring together both Houses of the Oireachtas to feed into the document because it is so important that we get this right and we want to follow through on it.

Deputies questioned earlier whether the Government would follow through on this plan. I ask them to look at the plans we have brought forward over recent years that we did follow through on, for example, the Action Plan for Jobs, including the regional action plans which are making a difference and driving jobs out into the regions. Some 70% of the jobs created last year were in the regions. The Action Plan for Jobs doubled its target. This is way ahead of expectation. While we accept the Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness is not enough to fix the problem, it is tracking its plan and is doing exactly what it set out to do. We do stick to our plans. The national planning framework, Ireland 2040, will stretch across many Governments. God knows who will be in them. We hope they will stick to this strategy and to the plan. It is for the benefit of our country that we get by, invest properly in key areas, achieve that regional balance and protect rural Ireland, saving it in some places and restoring it in others. We must drive that forward while building up our cities for the engine to be able to serve those rural areas too. It is key that we get that right.

The decisions we take now as to how our cities need to grow and how we revitalise our rural areas, protect our heritage and environment and provide a sustainable society and legacy for our children all have at their core the objective of improving our quality of life and preparing us for a better and different future.

Listening to the many impassioned contributions from Members, understandably promoting their own areas, it strikes me that if we built a framework solely on the basis of everyone's local ambitions, we would fool ourselves again into planning for wholly unrealistic growth prospects. While Deputies all commented on the national position, they also referred their own areas and what they wanted in terms of housing, development and so on. That is not really what we are trying to achieve here. Our country learned a very expensive, €64 billion lesson from an economic crash that was fuelled by what happened in the areas of banking and property speculation and that led to a lost decade. We must continue to learn from that and ensure that we make proper plans into the future. If we added together the ambitions expressed for all the cities, all the towns, all the villages and all the rural areas during this debate, we would be talking about a country with 10 million people or more. The plan in this document foresees a population of 8 million across the entire island, including the North. This is simply not credible, nor a basis for prudent investment. We would be fooling ourselves again. It is important that we focus our submissions on the national picture and that people take time in the weeks ahead to get involved during the consultation period. We need to realise that not every town or village can take more. There is a balance to be struck in terms of sustainable development, with some towns and villages needing more to make them sustainable. We are trying to concentrate on key areas where we can provide services.

Many speakers referred to issues such as light rail systems in cities like Galway and Cork. While these are achievable, there has to be a critical mass of people to use them. That is what we are trying to achieve. We have to make sure we give people the option to live in rural Ireland, and that is in this plan. Some people have concerns and we are trying to address those. I represent a rural area and an urban area - and I live in a rural area - so I understand the concerns. That is not what this plan is about; it is about recognising that if our cities are going to compete on an international footing, if Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford are going to make an impact in the world and win investment and job creation, they have to be at a certain level and they have to have a critical mass. With that comes proper additional services like public transport. We know that if we want to service Galway properly, the city would need to spend up to €900 million on infrastructure within the city to provide for transport. That is not going to happen unless there is condensed development, using every bit of space in a clever and wise way. That is for people who want to live in cities, and there are still plenty of people who want to live in rural areas and smaller villages.

The national planning framework is very strategic and it does not and should not get into every little detail. The national has called it right in settling what are often competing and at times conflicting aims between our regions, cities and wider rural areas. Some Deputies stated that we need to address the balance of development between east and west in favour of regional cities, towns and rural areas. Others remarked that people living in Dublin may continue to do so and that we cannot limit that or stop that, which is right. That is not what we are trying to do. We do not live in a command economy. This is not a location where we can order people to move. People make choices to live, work and invest on the basis of many influences, including choices made regionally and locally about where to focus, where to prioritise and what sort of places we want now and in the years ahead. It is about giving people the choice, the option. Many of those we represent do not have that choice and have ended up living with their families an hour an a half or two hours away from their job, which is not what we want. We want to ensure that if people want to live in a rural area, they can do that in a sustainable way. If they want to live in a city, we want to ensure that city will grow in a sustainable way and have the services they need to live in that city.

The national planning framework is not about parish-pump politics or a one-for-everybody-in-the-audience approach. Our citizens expect that their politicians will take the long-term view and make the right decisions in their overall strategic interests. This is our collective responsibility, as national politicians, not only the Government but elected members across the system. I am glad so many Deputies spoke in this debate, in particular those from Fianna Fáil who were lined up today to speak, one after the other, which is great to see. This is meant to be a full parliamentary document, not just a Government document. We are glad to have the involvement of others.

We must take the lead, show the way and set a clear but straightforward policy context for the supporting State structures at central, regional and local levels in order to make the national planning framework happen through consistent regional spatial and economic plans, as well as development plans at local and community level. A key part of this will be the regional plans that will be brought forward in 2018. It is key that everyone has an influence on them before the roll-out in 2019 of the local development plans.

There were some erroneous suggestions made in respect of the national planning framework leading to a capping city or town and village development - for example, in my own county. This is simply not the case and it is mischievous to suggest it. Some Deputies from the same county have a conflict of views on this matter. It is not about limiting the ambitions of any one county, city or town. Some of the targets set under the national planning framework for regional cities are hugely ambitious. If we take Limerick, for example, its growth rate has been effectively flat for the past 30 years and Government wants it to grow by 50% in the next 30. In my view, that is an ambitious target but I hope it can be achieved. If it is, Limerick will be in a position to go beyond that. This is not to cap or to limit but to guesstimate where this could go, and to put the plans, infrastructure and investment in place to make it happen.

The Government also wants rural villages and smaller towns to thrive. Everything in the national planning framework supports that, from commitments on rural broadband to transport connectivity, smart growth initiatives to turn around dereliction, and so on. That is what we can achieve. It was asked whether we will facilitate people to build at the edge of villages and towns. We can do that in a proper, co-ordinated way where there are services and use the brownfield sites. However, there are many small towns and villages where people choose not to live because a site would cost too much. We had plans in the past where the idea was good but we did not back it up with proper land management strategies, and those sites ended up costing a fortune. Why would one give up on a free site to go and pay €100,000 for a site somewhere else? We are going to have an impact. The State will be involved in real land management issues, which is something we have to consider funding. In this document, we raised the question of whether we are willing to go there. I think we should and I think most would agree with that.

Many Deputies said they would like to see more detail in the national planning framework. They must realise that this is a framework and that it needs follow-through at regional and local levels. We cannot have all the detail here today because that would defeat the purpose and the document would probably end up at 1,000 pages, which is not what we want. It is not that we are against writing 1,000 pages but it would not achieve the end result and we would be accused of making it too top-down in nature. We want people to buy into this at a local and regional level, as well as at national level.

From my perspective, there is actually a lot in the draft framework document but, behind all the detail and analysis, there are probably four key principles. One is better strategic planning for our cities, including Dublin, as our capital and key international driver, so we continue to make that impact and win investment. That investment wants to come in to key areas where talent is located. Naturally, there can be follow-on investment from that in all the other cities. The second principle is growing Ireland’s four other cities significantly. Investing means investing in our regions. We represent different counties and know it is about having the talent and access to people. That is why Galway has done so well in the area of medtech because it has become that hot spot for that sector. Regions can bring certain skill sets to this that we can drive forward. The third point is addressing connectivity to and opportunities within Ireland’s regions and rural areas. This is key. If rural Ireland is to survive, we have to connect it, a point many Deputies have raised. We have to do this in a sustainable way while making sure the connections are there so businesses can thrive and people can open a business or rural enterprise and make it sustainable, and continue to grow their area. The fourth is securing more compact forms of development to reduce sprawl and to provide more choice. If someone is from a rural area, they do not want the town to grow out to them. They want to have the choice to live in a rural area and they want the town to grow up in a compact way, not to be getting closer every day. If we manage this right, we can achieve both as best as we possibly can.

We know the statistics. We have to cater for an extra 1 million people in the years ahead. If we plan this right, that should bring with it an extra 600,000 jobs and 500,000 houses. Now is the time to think about it and to plan ahead for ten to 20 years' time. I am glad Members were interested in contributing to this debate. I want to reflect on the contributions, particularly from Fianna Fáil Deputies, who have stressed the need for more consultation time. The Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, has announced that an extra week will be allowed. We had planned to close the consultation process on 3 November next but there will be an extra week to give people more time to buy into this and to get involved in the conversation. I had a bit of a row with Deputy Kelleher because we have had this open for discussion since last February through different channels. It is only when we get to the draft document that people want to get involved and to focus in. There is now the extra week. November is going to be a busy month. I ask Deputies to take time to get involved because this relates to everyone's future.

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