James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I listened with interest to Deputy Bailey's speech. There have been a number of speeches in the House on this issue over the last number of days. I thought that Deputy Bailey gave a fine speech. She spoke about evidence-based policy and detailed consultations. I would love it if that were the case. It was certainly well argued and well intentioned and I would support it, were it not for the unedifying spectacle of a scramble in recent weeks by Government Ministers, Deputies and councillors to somehow allocate funding for their particular regions or areas. I believe the plan was renamed at the 11th hour for fear that it be considered an urban plan - or perhaps for fear that it be considered a rural plan - because it had to have something for everyone in the audience. If the plan was based on evidence-based policy, detailed consultation and best planning frameworks, I would be delighted to support it. However, the evidence to date does not appear to show that this is the case.

I have looked through the various aspects of the plan. I am looking at it from a Kildare perspective, considering what we need and do not have there. The first reaction from my own constituents, and even from local media, was one of confusion. There is a long list of projects across the country, and I am familiar with those in my own area. I imagine that the same applies across this House. Items such as the Sallins bypass were listed as items to be delivered by 2040, as is the Naas to Newbridge N7 widening. Multiple other plans are also scheduled to be completed before that date. Deputy Cassells has been arguing for the Slane bypass for many years, and it is also included in the plan. My constituents, and indeed my local radio station, KFM, were quite confused and spoke about the plans on the airwaves. They said that some of these projects are already under way, and that they drive past them every morning. These projects are well advanced. Some of them have been going on for ten years, between planning, pre-planning and consultations. There is confusion and scepticism as to how these projects are part of a new plan, when in fact most of them have already started.

I will return to the subject of connectivity later but I note with some degree of scepticism that the national broadband plan is one of the projects the Government is seeking to deliver. I wish it well with that project, but it does not inspire confidence.

On the theme of innovation, I asked a question only a few hours ago of the Minister of Health, who was standing in for the Taoiseach, about Government spending on research and development and on innovation. Another recent plan, published to much fanfare and heraldry, was Innovation 2020. The former Minister of State at the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy English, put great work into it and was very diligent about it. Indeed, it is not his fault that the plan he delivered has not been implemented. Innovation 2020 at this stage is more remarkable because of what is omitted from it rather than its implementation. The headline target for innovation in that plan was that 2.5% GDP was to be spent on research and development funding. Figures from the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation published last week show that not only have we failed to meet the 2.5% - we have spent somewhere around 1.45% - but in fact spending on research and development went backwards last year. We spent less in 2017 than we did in 2016. At a time when the Government must have realised that the knowledge economy and third and fourth level education are paramount to ensure continued foreign direct investment, competitive advantage, educating our workforce of the future and attracting talent, capital and investment, it is unforgivable for the State to be going backwards in terms of research and development funding. In this context it is difficult to have confidence in Project Ireland 2040. We cannot even manage a project for 2018.

Speaking of research and development, I would like to acknowledge the presence of Jim Sullivan, who is with us today in the Public Gallery. He is vice-president of global research at AbbVie, which is a very successful multinational pharmaceutical company, which has a long tradition of investment in Ireland. Indeed, it does some fine work.

In terms of transport, I have spoken about the N7, the Sallins bypass and the local projects in my area. I want to talk about public transport. I was in London recently and I used the public transport network, including the underground. I never fail to be inspired by the connections it has. There are multiple airports around the city centre. It has the Circle line, which means that it is immaterial whether one is north, south, east or west. To go anywhere one merely has to make a couple of connections and the whole thing falls into place. My constituents in Sallins who work in Sandyford struggle to get there. It is a hop, skip and a jump between multiple different modes. If they are lucky they might be able to get a train and then take a couple of Luas journeys, providing it is not travelling through College Green at a snail's pace, as it has been most days this week. There does not seem to be the integration and connectivity such as that provided by the Circle line in London. I have long argued for the interconnector. It was one of the first projects that I advocated when I came into this Chamber two years ago. I had a Topical Issue debate with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, shortly after he was appointed on the topic of the DART underground. It is now listed as one of the projects in the plan. To my knowledge there are no detailed spending figures available for it. We do not see any further than a dotted line, which was in previous plans, including in Transport 21 over ten years ago. My party spent €500 million to advance it, including feasibility studies, bore holes, drilling and compulsory purchase orders, CPOs for certain land works, but unfortunately it remains a dotted line. I wish the Government well on this because it is absolutely imperative that the project is advanced.

If we look at education there are grand promises about 90,000 primary school places and many thousands of secondary school places. Yesterday I debated with the Minister for Education and brought up St. Joseph's school, Kilcock. It is situated in a building dating from the 1950s. The school urgently needs a new build. The town of Kilcock had 1,000 people when it was built; it now has 6,500, and yet it is still struggling with the same school. It has four permanent classrooms and nine prefabs. We cannot get the money to pay for a new school. Immediately after my contribution in the House I am travelling to an emergency meeting with parents in Naas Community College to try to explain why the Government committed to build at the school a number of years ago but the building work has not started yet. As much as we might wish the plan well, it is very hard to have confidence in these kinds of plans when we cannot deliver today, never mind in 22 years' time.

I have spoken about higher education and the importance of research and development and innovation to the economy. Universities are crying out for investment. They need it in terms of knowledge capital, intellectual capital and research spending. They are also crying out for facilities. Bricks and mortar are required. The programme for research at third-level institutions, PRTLI, was a fund which existed all through Fianna Fáil's tenure in government. The party leader, Deputy Micheál Martin, initiated it in the early 2000s and it continued through some philanthropic investments, which were matched with State funding. It existed until this current Government took office. Lipservice is now being paid to it. There is a trickle of money still left in the programme. Two and a half years after this Government took office, the university sector has no knowledge or certainty about what will replace PRTLI. How can the universities construct a new science building, a new laboratory or a new library in the absence of funding? It is very difficult to talk about education and the need for innovation when we see these kinds of gaps.

On tourism, I must give credit where it is due and say that the Wild Atlantic Way is a fantastic project. I had the pleasure of cycling it last summer on my holidays with my family in Mayo. It is well heralded and successful. It was so successful that a marketing architect was poached to launch its marketing strategy, namely, Mr. John Concannon. He is doing spectacularly well. There are 15 or 16 people in his team, which does nothing except spin for the Government all day long. I certainly credit him with coming up with the idea for the Wild Atlantic Way. Unfortunately the Grand Canal Way lingers. The project to link Naas to Sallins, to Ardclough and into south Dublin would be a fantastic initiative. It would drive tourism and active living, and all of the positives we are trying to address across the country. However, it lingers at the end of a very long list of projects. I have raised this issue recently with a number of officials, and indeed with the Minister for Rural and Community Affairs, Deputy Ring. I hope that some progress will be made on that. We would love to see all of these things happen, but when they are not happening today it is hard to see how they are going to happen tomorrow or in 22 years' time.

On health I would have loved to have seen some kind of technological advancements in the plan, for example a commitment to a national patient identifier or a digital ID, which could transform the health system. One would imagine it would not be terribly difficult to do but it is part of the problem in terms of the disconnected approach that exists at the moment. These are the kinds of things we would really hope to see.

On climate change, I understand there is a significant amount of climate change spending in the plan, which is to be welcomed.

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However, the Government argued trenchantly against the Climate Emergency Measures Bill only a week ago because it cannot commit to renewable energy generation in the next 20 years. On the one hand, we are hearing that all this money will be spent and that climate change will be addressed but on the other, the Government came into the Chamber and opposed an Opposition Bill because it said it could not commit to meeting renewable targets. It is very difficult to understand where all of that is going.

I wish to talk about governance. When I was started as a member of Kildare County Council, we could not spend €10,000 on a road without oversight by the senior engineer, consultation among all the members, a vote in the chamber and a signing-off process. That was best practice, evidence-based and a good use of public money. Unbelievably, with regard to the €110 billion, €120 billion or €130 billion of public money - I forgot what is being said now but it is an awful lot of money - there is no governance council or national infrastructure commission such as that called for by Fianna Fáil. We published a Bill on governance and public spending, which has not been adopted by the Government, and we hear there may not even be a vote on any of these matters. However, I wish the plan well. I wish for it to be successful but that remains to be seen. Past performance certainly is an indicator of future behaviour and past performance is not great in this area.

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