Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputies for raising these issues. I appreciate the focus from Deputy Cleere on Kilkenny City Vocational School and Coláite Pobail Osraí. I visited these schools many years ago with the late Bobby Aylward. I think his son was working there. I will certainly keep an eye on those and will talk to the Minister for education in respect of them. It is important. Substantial funding has been made available for education on the capital front. If we look at capital, we keep saying that delivery is not happening, and I did say that myself. At the same time, we are now spending the capital that has been allocated over the past two years. In 2020, 2021 and 2022, not all of the capital was spent and it was moved to other Departments to get spent. I refer to the past two to three years. This year, it is €2 billion-plus. We are at €19 billion, so we would have spent €17 billion last year. Inflation has happened and construction inflation has been higher than normal inflation, which has been a problem. The issue of European directives and European frameworks on the environmental side is proving very problematic in terms of flood relief programmes and so on, and there is no point in saying otherwise. I will pursue those.

Deputy Shane Moynihan reflected the idea that if we do not accelerate, we could lose international experience, which we are certainly seeking in respect of the metro and some of the more complex transport projects, such as light rail and so on. We have seen how that has worked in the past in terms of the Luas and other big developments. There are a lot of roadshows going on in terms of the implementation of the planning Act, the commencement of all regulations there, further legislation in respect of judicial review, which the Minister for justice is going to bring in, and the report coming back from the Minister, Deputy Chambers, in respect of removing the barriers and having a programme for the accelerated delivery of infrastructure projects. I know there are a number of school projects in the Deputy’s constituency that he has highlighted.

Deputy Seamus McGrath highlighted the need for investment in city centres. We significantly improved the living city initiative in the budget, which I advocated very strongly for. A lot will depend on the city council getting the maps back as quickly as possible for designation. With regard to shops, there will not be any timeline in respect of the date of the building, so any shop can convert and avail of the scheme. In terms of housing and other buildings, the year is now 1975 as opposed to 1915, so, hopefully, that will create some activity in the five cities and regional centres like Dundalk, Drogheda and other areas.

I have had meetings with the city council. People do not like the word “taskforce” in Cork - we are kind of fussy - so they are looking for a different title because the city has made progress. They had issues with that but, in any case, we are going to set up a group in terms of the roadmap for progress and a fresh approach to Cork city itself. It is important that we get the terms of reference and the focus right. Some work has been undertaken between UCC, the city council, the Cork Business Association and others in respect of how the city should progress. We want to make sure that in what we establish, we capture that and not duplicate or do something on a different strand or track.

The current development plan, up to 2028, is important. We are talking about a world class city driving local and regional growth and embracing diversity and inclusiveness. We have the large-scale regeneration projects in Cork docklands and Tivoli and the development of a much-enhanced, citywide public transport system. A lot of active travel projects have been delivered in Cork city. which is quite good to see. It is about bringing all of that together. I would be particularly interested in the inner city core - that we create new opportunities there. There is more work to be done for towns around the country in that respect. We need to bring more residential back in. This then creates new opportunities for a different kind of retail and hospitality into the future.

Deputy Ó Murchú referenced flood projection and CFRAM. I could not agree with the Deputy more. All the flood relief schemes are slow-moving, by definition, in terms of consultation with various groups, stakeholders and so forth. It is something I have raised with the Attorney General and others in terms of EU frameworks that govern a lot of this. Adaptation and flood relief are critical to the survival of towns and cities. They are urgent because of the impact of climate change, which is very real.

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