Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this topic. The national recovery and resilience plan is what is down for discussion but we are talking about the economic plan as well. It is difficult to cover all of that in the four minutes and 41 seconds available to me. However, I am grateful for the time and I hope to use it effectively.

It has been extremely difficult to have a debate on this plan. Reference was made to the Parliamentary Budget Office, which kindly produced a paper for us and told us there has been no substantive engagement with the Houses or the Oireachtas committees on the plan. There has been limited scrutiny by the Oireachtas in the preparation of the recovery and resilience plan, which deals with almost €1 billion in funding from Europe under three headings. I will come back to those headings presently. That lack of engagement is a problem. I hope the Government will learn from it and come back with quarterly updates to the committees and the Dáil. That would be something at least to inspire confidence.

Deputy McGuinness said that any day on which this much money is being put into the economy, comprising almost €1 billion from the EU and more than €3 billion under the economic recovery plan, is a good day. It certainly is a good day and there are many positive things in the plan. My difficulty is that the pandemic affected us particularly badly because we were unprepared.

We had a public health system that was not fit for purpose and hospitals that were creaking at the seams, a housing crisis and so on. We all joined with one voice to pass the Government's draconian legislation to deal with the pandemic and we all stood together in solidarity. That is now creaking at the seams. We were to learn that we could never go back, yet this plan is being hailed without scrutiny as something that will cause the economy to "take off like a rocket". That type of language does not indicate to me that we have learnt anything at all. We simply cannot let the economy take off like a rocket because that would not be sustainable on any level. This also goes back to where we were, which was not sustainable.

I look at the plan and see good things without a doubt. Everybody has a personal interest. I will not waste time setting out the three headings because the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, did so earlier. "Digital reform" is an unfortunate term because under that there are very good things like developing a ten-year adult literacy, numeracy and digital literacy strategy but the figure for adult illiteracy has been stubbornly high, has it not? It is somewhere between 19% and 20-something per cent. That is unforgivable and should have been dealt with earlier. I welcome that we are now going to look at it. I welcome other good things in the plan.

We are not recognising, however, that we need a completely different approach. Because of climate change and Covid, we need transformative change, and the economy we now wish to ignite must be ignited in a different way. It must have a regional balance. It must take into account our islands, our smaller towns and sustainable development. I really do not see that happening with the words "take off like a rocket". That is very worrying to me. I look at this plan and think of Galway, a city that is growing, and I welcome that, but it is growing without a master plan, without any light rail or public transport and without any park-and-ride. We have islands without an island policy. We have towns going under, both i gcroílár na Gaeltachta and, on the other side, in Kilmaine and Tuam. I am naming towns that need urgent help and stimulation, which is not happening. Deputy Ó Cuív mentioned the western rail corridor, which I fully support. In the guise of this sustainability and equality, Cork, because it has a Taoiseach and senior Ministers, is getting a lot. I thought we had moved away from that politics. I thought we would look at which projects are necessary. For instance, we have sewage going into our seas and rivers. I would have thought we would highlight those projects and then public transport. Of course I will fight for Galway but I would like to see public transport projects like light rail rolled out if they are the right thing to do. We need a feasibility study in that regard.

I have 13 seconds left. What can I say? Perhaps the Government will learn and come back to the relevant committees and the Dáil so we can analyse this and be part of the democratic process. Rather than labelling Opposition Deputies as negative and sidelining us, the Government should take on board what we are saying. We were elected just like the Government Deputies and have ideas just like they do. Our ideas might be slightly different but we would be delighted to work with Government Deputies in the proper forum.

See this speech in context