Michael D'Arcy (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is good to be here welcoming a good plan. One must look at where we started from, that is, areas, in particular, the north west, that effectively were left behind. I refer to the connectivity that we are talking about in terms of roads, the N14 Lifford to Letterkenny, the A5 and the roads that Deputy Ó Caoláin spoke about. It is the first time that the north west has been connected correctly to what somebody described as the main economic driver of the country, which at this stage is County Dublin. There is the road connection to the north west, the rail connection to Sligo and then the vision that will be air connection to Knock airport, which is much more than a regional airport. That is the real benefit that the north west will experience in the future. Of course, there is the connection of the roads: the N17 from Sligo down as far as Tuam - the Tuam-Gort bypass is built and the connection between Galway and Limerick is built - and the connection of the M20 from Limerick to Cork. That is the connectivity required. One of the staggering statistics that amazed me from the previous census was that two thirds of the population of the island live within 20 km of the sea. It is so important to connect up all that area, from Belfast to Dublin, down into my county of Wexford, the connection between Oilgate and Rosslare connecting the ports, the connectivity between Rosslare, New Ross, Waterford and Cork, and back up along the Atlantic corridor. For the first time ever, we have a plan that will connect all those areas - roads, people, airports, railway links and, of course, the most important aspect of all of this, jobs. It revolves around jobs. There are 660,000 jobs to be created. There are jobs that will be operational in 2040 that have not even been invented yet.

There are so many good projects in this plan. The school programme, at primary and post-primary, amounts to €8.8 billion, but that is not only for the schools and classrooms. As we come up to the completion of that programme, it is to move on to the next stage, which we did not get to do because we did not have the money in the past decade, for PE rooms and computer rooms so that we can start the children off with good habits in young classes, achieve improvements in post-primary classes and move on from there.

The three elective hospitals are important. We have too many waiting lists. We also have also too many hospitals. The three elective hospitals that will be built I hope will be of a scale where we can do away with the waiting lists. We can use the economy of scale in Dublin, Cork and Galway for those three new units, to 2,600 beds, for the hospital groups to get themselves organised and to put in place those beds where the population bases are and use the hospitals to the best of their abilities. It is not that they all will be in one hospital. A general hospital might become an area of expertise in one specific treatment or that type of thing. It is important to have that vision for this.

We also must remember that there will also be the technological universities. That will be so important for my region because it has suffered more than any other region. We have the lowest level of third-level participation because there was no university in the south east. When one conducts the analysis on why students do not return, it shows it is because they leave for college and the smallest percentage returns. That has had a significant impact on the region of the south east.

The other aspect of this that is important for my county, Wexford, is Rosslare Port. It will be really important in terms of Brexit. I spoke about the connectivity from Wexford to Dublin - the major economic organ of the State - and to Cork. While everybody is of the view that all roads lead to either Dublin or Cork, in my view, the opposite is the case. The roads lead to every other part of the country. That is the future so that we do not have everything having to be done in two or three areas, and we can develop the counties that are within an hour and a half distance with motorway network being constructed around the country. Those areas will then thrive and become economic generators in their own right.

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