Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I first want to associate myself with the remarks that the Tánaiste has made just now on the treatment of the Palestinian people by the Israeli Government.

The commitments made to our national recovery include one of the largest tranches of capital investment ever announced in the State. Some €10 billion is to be spent on capital projects this year with Government projections indicating upward momentum in capital spending, with an additional €15 billion to be spent by 2025. This is great news for every child in substandard classrooms, every patient in substandard hospital settings and commuters on substandard infrastructure. This money must positively impact every Irish person. Getting to this position is a political and social achievement brought about by national sacrifice, by seeing through a decade of financial hardship and hard choices accepted by our population.

Few Governments in the history of our State have ever been in a position to give the people of Ireland the services they deserve in the schools, universities, hospitals and clinics, the housing and municipal infrastructure, and the investment in the arts, sports, roads, cycleways and railways.

Indeed few Governments have also had the ability to address so positively the challenges that climate change is presenting to our society and ultimately to our economy.

This money needs to be spent wisely and well. That will require political discipline, oversight and scrutiny, as well as tenacious and vigilant project management. I contend that the methods of oversight used thus far are not up to the task. The Committee of Public Accounts and the Comptroller and Auditor General, good as they are, are no match for the scale of ambitions and responsibilities in spending this money. Covid spending has taught us strong lessons regarding the difficulties in making good investment decisions when urgency and large capital outlays combine. We will be back in the ha'penny place in no time if we fritter away this money on political codology, vanity projects and, possibly, stroke politics.

My constituency of Waterford has suffered as a result not having had political clout for most of the history of the State. In saying that, I am conscious that my election as a Deputy comes from the anger in Waterford and the south-east region at not having the services that are normal in other parts of the country. We have been losers in the race to the Cabinet table, having only had three senior ministries in the past 33 Dáileanna. Maybe we will get our elbows in at Cabinet again, but I would prefer if we evened up the game.

The real problem is that we cannot see where money goes. The simple act of presenting historical capital expenditure on completed projects in the form of regional and county-level analyses would transform our national understanding. I believe such a reporting standard needs to be made a national priority. The country can have mature conversations about capital allocations and equitable investment priorities but, in so doing, we need to have oversight and adequate understanding of how decisions on capital spending are made. I hope this is something the Tánaiste can consider implementing.

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