Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Will the Minister consider that he has responsibility not just for the cash spent but also for the overall coherence of the investment? If our goal is sustainable communities, it is not adequate that the Department of Education, for example, will typically not build a school until ten years after children have been there, following many years in prefabricated buildings. Similarly, the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media will not provide sports grants to these communities if they do not have established clubs and facilities to develop. Childcare is also often very delayed, while transport projects often arrive even longer than a decade late. On the north fringe of my constituency, we are committing to very substantial expansion, but to make that feasible, will we not need to front-load some of these key public service infrastructure projects to make those communities viable as living, working centres, with the 15-minute city for which everyone now advocates?

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