Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Regional Group and Deputy Shanahan. This is worthwhile legislation. We all get the idea behind it. We know we do not have the due diligence on budgetary oversight that we would like to see and we know we need to make sure that we introduce that. The idea is there would be reporting from each Department, an element of accountability on where capital spends were meant to be to ensure we actually had a fair allocation of resources and that we deliver what we need and want, while anticipating that at times there will be need for flexibility, which would be taken into account.

Deputy Conway-Walsh spoke of how there has to be a means of the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform taking back responsibility. We have seen across the State the idea of subcontracting out almost everything. We see it at local authority level. We have even seen, and it probably has political benefits at times, where Members of the Government do not have to attack the Government but can attack the local authority, Irish Water or many other agencies. That can result in an element of farce in politics.

The fact is we need to have capacity to carry out the due diligence and beyond that we need to make sure we can deliver on the infrastructure that we all require. We know the issues that arose during the period of what is called austerity. Deputy Conway-Walsh spoke of how we committed the crime of socialising and nationalising the debt and the lost opportunities at that point. We need to make sure we get our i's dotted and our t's crossed and have the system that is actually fit for purpose.

When we are looking at infrastructure and major infrastructure projects, it goes without saying we will look at the mistakes made in the tendering process, whether that is the high costs that arose in Dublin Port Tunnel, the Luas or even the national broadband plan, but in particular we will look at the national children’s hospital. We know there may need to be further conversations with the European Commission because we cannot be reliant on a system of lowest-cost tenders. It does not make any sense whatever, particularly when there are the likes of BAM which make the determination that it gets the lowest cost in while never intending to maintain that cost. That is a particular problem. Mistakes were definitely made. Percentages can be allowed for companies or operations that are actually fit to deliver. Then there are other circumstances, and this is something that may happen with certain wind power projects, where a community dividend and other necessary parts will be taken into account. That has to be built in to what we are talking about because we know that we do not have the capacity as a State at this time to deliver on the housing issues that are impacting on all our people. I do not think it is okay that we have not ramped up in any way, shape or form in relation to where we need to be regarding delivery of social or affordable housing, cost rental and all those parts. While accepting they will not all be delivered by the State - we are also talking about approved housing bodies and others - we really need to ensure the State can do the heavy lifting when required.

We have had flooding incidents in north County Louth recently. This happened in other parts of Louth as well but it particularly in the Cooley Peninsula. Dundalk, my own town, was very close to being flooded on the basis that we cannot deal with heavy rains. We have a combined waste water system which deals with sewage and also storm waters. There are huge parts of Dundalk where, if there is any level of heavy rain, that will have water that stays on the streets in estates such as Bay Estate and Cluan Enda. We have a drainage system that cannot deal with the new estates that have been added or the new factories. All these things are particularly welcome but it looks like we do not have the capacity. The only good news I have had in the last while is the fact that there is a drainage area plan. I am engaging with Irish Water at the moment but we need to see that this is dealt with. I can talk about the difficulties around the N2. That is another road project that seems to have run into the ground. Sometimes I wonder when the Minster, Deputy Eamon Ryan, talks about a competitive planning process because we have seen a hell of a lot of very necessary planning projects that have fallen by the wayside. With the drainage area plan, we need to make sure we assess and review. We will obviously have to do work on mitigations in storm protection. We know the local authority is doing this. Myself and Councillor Antóin Watters met the director of service recently. In fairness, they are addressing a lot of the flooding issues and there is a crossover with the CFRAM protections. However, we need to make sure that a specific piece of work is done around assessing whether we have the capacity to deal with wastewater and to deliver the clean water we need. That is what need to be done across the board. The problem is one is dealing with Irish Water, which will also have plants that are being operated by private companies. Again, there is the issue of subcontracting. We need to make sure we have a means of checking how we spend the money and where it is spent and beyond that we need to assess the infrastructure we require across the board to deliver for our people.

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