Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith mo thacaíocht a thabhairt don Bhille seo agus gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta Matt Shanahan as é a chur os comhair na Dála. Gabhaim buíochas freisin le baill an Ghrúpa Réigiúnach atá ag úsáid a gcuid ama chun é seo a chur os comhair na Dála.

I welcome this Bill. I thank Deputy Matt Shannon for putting it before the Dáil today. I also thank the Regional Group for using our Private Member's Business time to put it before the Dáil.

There is a saying in business that you cannot manage if you cannot measure. It is very clear that if we want to make the correct decisions, we need to know what is actually going on. If we cannot see what is happening in a business, an organisation or society, then we are operating blind. That is a very dangerous place to be because it means we are not spending money efficiently and where it is needed. This is a significant characteristic of the Government. Capital infrastructure is often considered a dusty issue, but it is really important. It encapsulates the issues that we, as a society depend on, whether that be a person depending on a hospital, a school, transportation or energy. As a society, we are all very dependent on the proper delivery of capital infrastructure. This country has a bad record in the context of the delivery of capital infrastructure. For the decade after austerity, Ireland was second lowest in the EU in the delivery of capital infrastructure. Only Romania beat us to the bottom when it came to capital infrastructure spending. For a solid ten years, we were not even keeping up the quality of the capital infrastructure we already had through investment. There was significant depreciation in capital infrastructure, which means that we now have to spend more just to stand still.

One of the aspects of the Bill that is extremely important is that which relates to accountability. The Government has been an accountability free zone in terms of the delivery of capital infrastructure for the past number of years. There has been a €1.4 billion overspend on the national children's hospital. The project is six years behind schedule. For metro north, €300 million has been spent and not a shovel has yet been put into the ground. We talk about the Green Party and its influence in relation to the development of sustainable energy but yet planning permission has not been given for a single wind farm in the country in the past 12 months. I heard the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, talk about the fact that he had brought all of the energy ministers from Europe to Ireland to discuss offshore wind energy. The State has built seven offshore turbines in 20 years. It is astounding how slow we are in the development of really important capital infrastructure.

Reports in the papers this week tell us that An Bord Pleanála is sitting on a backlog of 22,000 planning applications for homes. In the middle of a housing crisis, we have a State organisation called An Bord Pleanála which is so underfunded for delivery of planning, it is holding back delivery of 22,000 homes. The Government is the biggest blockage in the delivery of houses. We have seen the Government spend €22 million on dodgy ventilators that did not work during the Covid crisis. It is now spending €75,000 storing those same ventilators. This is absolutely incredible. The HSE is spending €10 million on an overpayment because someone mismeasured a room that it is being rented out.

My issue is that nobody is ever held responsible for these kind of things. I spoke to the Secretary General of the Department of Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform. I asked had anybody ever lost a job in this State because of massive overspends or delays. His answer was "No". I asked had anybody ever been moved sideways or had there been a cost in relation to these wrong doings and his answer was again "No". That is the key issue here. If there is no cost to these types of mistakes or bad decisions, that means there will be no change. If this was happening in any business whereby a person making that level of bad decision that had such a cost, there would be a cost to that individual and, as a result, there would be a change in delivery as well. There is no accountability. The wonderful thing about this Bill is that it offers an opportunity to give decent, transparent analysis of the expenditure of the State on projects.

The other aspect of this Bill that is really important is how it deals with regional development. We are living in a State which is fast becoming a city state. Dublin is an outlier in terms of its size compared with the rest of the State and most capitals in the rest of Europe. London, for example, is considered to be too big for the British economy. Yet London has a smaller impact on the British economy than Dublin has on the Irish one. Because of this lopsided development as a city state, we have a massive area now that is a commuter belt. People are commuting from Munster, Connacht and Ulster into Dublin every day. They are killing themselves with three-hour return journeys. Because most of the jobs are being located in Dublin, most of the young people have to move from provincial towns into the Dublin area to get a graduate-type jobs. The problem is that they cannot afford to live in Dublin. They have to live 40 miles outside the city in order to be able to afford a house and then commute in every single day. This throws the Minister's sustainability objectives out the window. The average age of a person in Killarney is now 44 years, while in Balbriggan it is 30. This is because young people are being forced to move en masseas a result of the lopsided development in this country.

This Bill offers an opportunity to analyse the infrastructure spend and the damage it is doing in relation to that. It will also help to develop analysis in relation to socioeconomic delivery of infrastructure. Many parts of our society are not getting the investment needed. As a result, it is leading to dereliction and disaffection in those areas. The north inner city is an example of an area that is not receiving investment. I would like for this Government to begin to look beyond the Liffey into the north side of Dublin in terms of investment and to make sure that those communities have the investment they need in order that they can prosper and live properly.

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