Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government is engaged in a huge programme of capital investment in public infrastructure under the banner of Project Ireland 2040. It is €10 billion a year, money which we may struggle to spend this year because of the delays in construction but still a massive budget of €10 billion a year. It is the biggest ever investment programme in public infrastructure, creating jobs all over the country and providing new public infrastructure for citizens. It is social housing, for which there is a budget to provide 9,000 or 10,000 houses a year, new schools, hospitals, healthcare centres, sporting infrastructure, community infrastructure, renewable energy, retrofit and the national broadband plan.

Like all other parts of the country, Waterford benefits from this investment, such as through the investment in the North Quays, of which I know the Deputy and I are great advocates, the investment in University Hospital Waterford where the Dunmore wing is now open and the second catheterisation laboratory is at long last under construction and the national broadband plan which will be of particular benefit to rural parts of Waterford. The greenway has been built and is a huge asset. In the not too distant future, we will have the technological university of the south east, centred in Waterford city. These are significant investments by Government that I believe will help to transform the region, particularly Waterford city, making it the capital of the south east and attracting investment, jobs and population. That is the vision we have in Project Ireland 2040 for Waterford city and the south-east region.

In terms of the Deputy's remarks regarding transparency, I think he is probably right. This is a significant budget of €10 billion a year. There may well be, and I think there is, a case for further transparency as to how the money is spent and how we make sure it is spent well. I know the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, will welcome any proposals the Deputy has in that regard. I would like to see Government doing detailed analyses of that because one thing such analyses would show is that the idea of having a Cabinet member at the table is probably overrated in terms of the amount of capital investment that a particular city or constituency gets. Maybe things used to work that way but they do not do so any more, particularly with the public spending code in place. Some of the analyses that are done by interest groups and academics are misleading. For example, they will exclude any investment less than €20 million or less than €50 million. Of course, in areas with low population and rural areas, investments tend to be of smaller amounts. They are spread more widely. That creates the false impression that urban areas are doing much better than rural areas. Also, it does not fully take into account, for example, the value of nationwide investments such as road maintenance, research grants or the national broadband plan. I know different countries use different models. There is a state agency in Australia that is in charge of capital development there. There are lots of good ideas and I would certainly welcome hearing about them.

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