Dáil debates

Thursday, 22 February 2018

Project Ireland 2040: Statements (Resumed)

 

3:05 pm

Photo of Maria BaileyMaria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak here again today on the national development plan, having contributed heavily to this process for the past year and a half. I am also clear that in the organisational structures of the plan, all the relevant stakeholders were consulted and encouraged to engage in the process, as I believed has happened. There have been over 40 public consultation engagements throughout the country and over 1,000 submissions from elected members, organisations and residents. The level of public consultation was intense and robust. I attended over half of those public meetings, which was extremely beneficial to me in respect of informing policy in a sustainable and ambitious format. None of those public consultation meetings dealt in rhetoric or aspirations. They were about constructive, informative plans for the future of our country. As chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government, I attended numerous informal private briefings from and formal meetings with the Department, during which the committee submitted its recommendations and observations. The Department officials have always made themselves available to meet any members of the committee.

Having come from 12 years in local government, I have a vast understanding of the level of work and enormous commitment it takes to produce a development plan for a county, never mind a country. It would be remiss of me not to take this opportunity to acknowledge the enormity of the challenge and the commitment it took to produce an investment plan in tandem with a national planning policy, the likes of which we have never seen before. I pay particular tribute to a very dedicated team within the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, namely, Mr. Dave Walsh, Mr. Niall Cussin, Mr. Paul Hogan, who is in the Chamber and many of their team. They gave enormously of their personal time to this project and I thank them for all they have done to date.

I have listened to many remarks in the past week about the statutory process and whether there needs to be a vote. I watched the political football going on for the past week. Just as I am on the pitch, I want to be very clear in the Chamber on my reading of this process. I sat through the statements on the draft national planning framework. I chaired joint committee meetings on the draft stage on 18 October, following which we submitted our report. I remained clear that a vote was not required on the final stage, because I had read the legislation and the framework. I am also clear about which Deputies were in dispute of this and who spoke or did not speak at the draft stage. I made it my business to be in the Chamber and to speak on the national planning framework because it is important to me not only as a national politician, but also as someone who wants to be part of the policy that will shape our future as a country, a future that will enable growth in a sustainable and targeted format.

It is now time to move on from this and to get to work implementing the national development plan in the interests of what I believe is the right thing to do. I want to mention a couple of the reasons I am so supportive of the national development plan. I have taken part in numerous debates in the past couple of days in which it has been pointed out how big the plan is and how many pages it contains. There have been references to reheating dinners and to the €1 billion we are spending on rural Ireland. When I talk to these people for any length of time, I realise they have not read the plan. If they had, they would be very clear on where we are going as a country and would not just be talking about how many pages are in the document. Everyone understands the consequences of bad planning of the past - the long commutes, ghost estates and empty town centres. I do not want to go back over history because our future is far too bright to delay the implementation of this plan. Project Ireland 2040 is about planning for an Ireland that we know, through evidence we have collated, will grow by at least a million people over the next 20 years. In respect of growth in employment, nine out of ten jobs have been outside Dublin in the past year and seven out of ten outside the satellite areas of Dublin. It would be bad politics not to plan and create the environment for such growth.

This is about planning for Ireland's future and not the bad planning of the past, which was built from election to election. This is about the next 20 years, during which we will need to provide an additional 660,000 jobs and over 500,000 homes. Some 25% of our population will be over a youthful 65 years and we need to plan for supportive housing. My colleague across the Chamber, Deputy Declan Breathnach, is very supportive in this area. We have had numerous conversations about viable supported living for older people in communities. I know he is very supportive and comes forward with many policies in this area. We need to provide housing on State-owned land throughout the country for this purpose.

We are going to harness and develop further the potential of our tier 1 and tier 2 ports through industry, tourism, marine life, fisheries and climate change. Ireland's territorial land is ten times greater then that of our island, which gives us vast opportunity and enables us to develop our floating wind farms, turbines and wave energy, all of which will help us transition to a carbon zero economy, harnessing the potential of the region in renewable energy terms across the technological spectrum from wind to solar to biomass and wave energy. Huge emphasis is being put into consolidating the development of places that grew rapidly in the past decade or so, with large-scale commuter driven housing development with a particular focus on addressing local community and amenity facility provision in many of our larger commuter towns through targeted investment. We are continuing the transformation of transport and communications by completing motorways, public transport and broadband links that are so badly needed to better connect communities and citizens. Investment in an integrated transport system that links Dublin Airport is long overdue. As a former ground staff employee of Dublin Airport, I fully recognise how inaccessible the airport has been in the past. Also planned are relocations of some of our maternity services and upgrading of our existing hospitals; three new elective units so they are not competing with our main hospitals; investment in primary care, community centres and mental health units, including one in Sligo; and investment in a technical university that will enable growth in education as education underpins growth. 

Launched as Project Ireland 2040 in tandem with the national development plan, the finalised national planning framework signals a shift away from the aspirational plans of the past that came after national development plans and were not underpinned by a capital investment plan. The national planning framework and the development plan are being followed through on by the three regional assemblies, bringing forward complementary regional, spatial and economic strategies, and linking strategic planning and investment at the national level with the physical planning and local economic and community development functions of local authorities. Formulation of the regional spatial and economic strategies has commenced.

I heard Deputy Imelda Munster being parochial about Drogheda. I would be happy to talk at length about Dún Laoghaire if anybody wants me to. That is where my allegiance lies. However, I am also very aware that this is a national plan. If Deputy Munster is supportive of this plan and supports her local authority, she too can play a role in developing her community and constituency, not with rhetoric but with actual supportive ways of implementing this plan. She too can be part of the growth of Drogheda.

Implementation of the national planning framework will be supported by a €3 billion regeneration and development fund for rural and urban development, and a new national regeneration and development agency. I could talk all week about the national planning framework plan. I have had it under my arm, in my car and at home for the last year and a half. I have been reading it back to front, upside down and inside out.

This is something that I am passionate about. I have no qualification in planning but I do have vast experience in it. I can see the massive potential this plan has for my children and their children in this country.

I pay tribute to the team in the Department for its commitment and dedication, and the enormity of the sacrifice those people have made in the past year to make this plan happen. The plan is about giving every citizen, young and old, equality of opportunity, quality of life and the potential to succeed in whatever area they want to succeed in. For that reason I am passionately supportive of this plan, and will do whatever it takes to support my local authority and the Government in its implementation.

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