Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This issue is very important and the Minister of State's speech identified and recognised a number of the points made by Opposition Members. As the economic situation has improved, the Government has prioritised significantly increased direct Exchequer investment in capital infrastructure. That will grow to 4% of our national income by 2027. This is a huge reliance on State capital, not on public private partnerships. It is money from the taxpayer to carry out the projects which are so urgently and badly needed. In the 2040 capital investment plan, the Government has identified the projects which it will support and which will be built. I am Chairman of the transport committee which dealt yesterday with the metro project. This project will involve expenditure of over €3 billion to provide a modern, efficient metro system in the city of Dublin. The Government is also expanding the DART and is providing over €2 billion to bring the service to places like Drogheda, which I welcome. That commitment is mentioned in the national planning framework.

The Government is doing the right thing and relying more on our own money to do the jobs which must be done to provide critical infrastructure. While it acknowledges the need for public private partnerships, it limits them to not more than any project included in the national development plan. Public private partnerships will assist the State rather than, as Opposition Members said, constituting uncontrollable companies which exploit users. I agree in particular with Deputy Mattie McGrath on tolls and the way tolling operates. There is a toll in my constituency on the M1. In the last year or so, over 1,000 drivers were overcharged by the toll operator which never bothered to tell anybody about it. When I discovered after public complaints what was doing on there, the fine imposed under the Transport Infrastructure Ireland arrangement was €3,800 in total notwithstanding that thousands were overcharged. The money was also refunded. As the Minister of State said in his speech, what is important is to have much greater accountability and transparency for the public private partnerships that are actually in place. I am concerned about the impact this toll has had in my constituency and on the people who live there. They are concerned that they are being exploited and that the toll operator is not accountable.

When the M1 was built, Julianstown and north Drogheda were bypassed. However, the traffic flows in the village of Julianstown stood at 25 vehicles per day in 2004 before the toll came in. In 2018, that figure is now approaching 20,000 vehicles per day. What is needed is a bypass of that village for the huge volume of traffic which continues to be generated not only because more people are living in the area, but also because of the use of the alternative route by people who feel the toll is too great an imposition on an everyday basis. Our constituency needs a bypass around Julianstown and a proper and decent Platin Road interchange. The road from the Platin interchange into Drogheda is appalling and fit only for 19th century horse and cart traffic. It is not fit for the modern city Drogheda is becoming. How do we deal with these issues and address the impact of capital infrastructure like the tolled road on our area? Julianstown is choc-a-bloc with traffic 24/7 and we have an unacceptable infrastructure distributor road around the town.

We also have another problem on the northern side of the town where a new distributor road is being built not by public private partnership but on the basis of developer contributions, which is almost the same thing, in regard to the 5,000 houses which will be built there. As the houses are built, the contribution will be provided by the developer to the local authority to provide the northern cross route. That is not good enough because it will take five to ten years while the town of Drogheda is choked by HGVs, heavy traffic and a port which is seeking to expand. Local communities are up in arms about HGVs going through their town. We need a new bridge on the eastern side of the town and that is in our Drogheda Port plan. We also need a new distributor road back to the motorway. The issue is whether these things are going to be provided through public private partnership or taxpayer spending.

I want to ensure it happens. The designation by the Government of Drogheda as an area for significant regional investment in both jobs and housing, as well as for population growth, needs a proper plan. That is why we should look at a PPP, public private partnership, if necessary, to provide this infrastructure but in a way in which the taxpayer and the community can control the policies. That is what is not happening with PPPs now.

Significant capital infrastructure investment is needed in our rail network. We welcome the fact that the DART is coming to Drogheda, with thousands more passenger spaces coming in and out of the town. However, we need a new railway station on the north of the town and in the village of Dunleer. Both of these proposals are predicated upon the development of housing. It is only when the houses are built that the capital will be provided for that rail network infrastructure. We need an interim or short-term PPP to provide that infrastructure. That is what the Minister of State spoke about when he referred to a ten-year maximum period within which PPPs will operate. The M1 toll operation PPP was designed to operate for 20 years. Accordingly, taxpayers feel they are not getting any benefit and are being ripped off by the toll operators. A shorter period in future projects, as proposed in the Minister of State's speech, would make much sense.

There is a structural deficit in north County Louth. The proposed Narrow Water bridge, a North-South project, would be advantageous to both counties Down and Louth, as well as to tourism in the area. When it was first proposed, the price came in at €19 million. However, later the prices came in between €25 million and €27 million. This made it impossible under project analysis to proceed with. Private enterprises were looking for significant amounts of money which were disproportionate to the actual costs.

As Government funding increases, the economy gets better and as more people are working, more funds will be available. The core of the Government's plan is that our capital projects will be increasingly funded not by PPPs but by the taxpayer. That would make much more sense and is what Members on the far side of the House were advocating. However, it must be remembered when times were bad and the economy collapsed, we were spending €18 billion more than we actually had. That is why we were held in hock, not just by the banks and the international financial community, but by paying for PPPs because we had no other way of funding infrastructure projects. I welcome the fact all of that is changing.

Accountability is important, as is the reduction in the duration of PPPs. More transparency and accountability, as well as a better deal for the taxpayer with more oversight of all of these projects, is necessary. It is absolutely unacceptable that, when over 1,000 motorists were ripped off by the M1 tolls outside Drogheda, I only got back one sheet of paper through freedom of information requests. The only record that exists is actually my original complaint about it. No explanation has been given and we do not know what happened. That is not good enough. It symbolises what is wrong and what has happened in the past. I welcome the administrative commitment to change that. We all have to ensure we get proper value for money, the Government infrastructure we need, as well as the capital plan dealt with. Our towns and cities are growing and we have to ensure the infrastructure is in place to meet future demands.

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