Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is essential for the success of this project, and for its vision to be achieved in 20 years' time, that the national planning framework has broad, cross-party support. I am disappointed that the Government is trying to ram it through without a vote on its contents. It should be a solid, comprehensive plan for the country and not a brochure for the Fine Gael Party.

I am glad that many of the proposals which Sinn Féin mid-west representatives, including myself, suggested are included. As a representative of Limerick city, I am delighted that the M20 motorway is included in the plan but we have been promised that road before. It was the current Taoiseach who scrapped the M20 plans back in 2011, when Minister for Transport, so forgive me if I hold back my praise for the project as it is re-announced seven years later. I will be happy when the motorway is built, rather than when it is repackaged and reannounced. The road is needed and it will not just benefit the cities of Limerick and Cork but the whole region.

Shannon Airport is referenced six times but there are no plans to maintain it, to sustain it or to grow it. Most of the projects for my constituency are continuations of things or plans that have been previously announced. I am happy to see the Limerick 2030 project in the national development plan, as well as the Limerick to Foynes road, the Limerick to Foynes railway and the continuation of the Limerick regeneration project. We need to develop Limerick City as the major city in the mid-west region. However, Limerick suffers from a disproportionately high number of unemployment black spots and areas of deprivation and these problems require Limerick-specific solutions now, before we can plan for 20 years' time.

In January the ESRI published a major study into deprivation in 11 EU countries between 2004 and 2015, which showed a significant gap between the rate of deprivation experienced by vulnerable adults in Ireland and that of others surveyed. In the national development plan for the next ten years, the word "poverty" does not appear once. Maybe a focus on that issue would mean Limerick would not have 18 electoral divisions classed as unemployment black spots, which is twice as many as in any other part of the country. The average unemployment rate for these areas is 43% and eight of ten unemployment black spots are in Limerick city. These figures are stark and we have not reduced them over the years. It is also more than double the combined figure for Dublin, Galway and Cork cities, which is truly shocking. The infrastructure needs to be put in place so that people can stay, work and live in Limerick, which specifically means more social and affordable housing, better transport links and essential services such as broadband.

I am glad to see many of the suggestions made by Sinn Féin's mid-west representatives, which are in the policy document we have launched, included in the plan. I hope that in 20 years' time, if Fianna Fáil has not bankrupted the country again, some of these important projects will have been delivered.

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