Dáil debates

Wednesday, 3 February 2021

Finance Act 2004 (section 91) (Deferred Surrender to the Central Fund) Order 2020: Motion

 

3:05 pm

Photo of Ruairi Ó MurchúRuairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is a technical measure, but it provides an opportunity to speak about necessary capital projects. I wish to add my voice to those of other speakers who spoke about difficulties with the audit system, the planning system and with moving major capital projects forward, be they schools, hospitals, certain housing developments and the like.

Representatives of Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII. and the National Transport Authority, NTA, attended the transport committee meeting yesterday and they spoke about the difficulties they have with the planning process. We are all aware that from time to time local residents are not necessarily happy with situations. Sometimes there are projects in planning for years, but they may lie dormant and the conditions change. This can be brought to the attention of TII or some other agency. The difficulty is that the agency accepts that there are demographic changes, geographical changes and certain things that must be taken into account, but it has to re-enter an entire new process as regards planning, so the projects are put back. The Ardee bypass is one such project. This must be circumvented. It is a matter of a process that works for the project leader, whether it is TII or the local authority, and for residents, whereby one can get into pre-consultation and get the problems dealt with as quickly as possible.

We need to get to a greater level of audits and pre-planning. We all know the difficulties relating to the housing crisis, but within that there are areas such as Blackrock and Haggardstown in my constituency where a number of housing developments have been built. There has been a serious increase in population, especially of the young population. That impacts on the need for schools, be they primary or secondary. We need a better system to address this across the board.

It would be remiss of me not to deal with the fact that Louth County Council has two major requests in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage at present for urban renewal development funding. The port access route in Drogheda is absolutely vital for the future of Drogheda and impacts on every issue ranging from housing to everything else. I would not be allowed to speak in the House again if I did not mention that, as it is constantly being championed by Deputy Munster and Councillor Joanna Byrne. I must also refer to the fact that the county council has an application in respect of Linenhall Street and Bridge Street to finish the work that is necessary to improve the centre of Dundalk. There is a wider body of work that must be done with regard to urban planning into the future, given the changing nature of urban centres.

We have to grasp this opportunity. I am aware of many of the national development plan submissions and the national development plan is being dealt with by the Minister. We must examine how we can put a better system in place as regards planning.

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