Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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90. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if his Department has considered the need to front-load public investments in areas including health, education and transport if compact development is to be a success. [31241/22]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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One of our key challenges as we try to take a more sustainable approach is to build compact communities, which will bring less travel in cars and require fewer parking places, lead to more sustainable public transport and allow us to right-size buildings more easily. In many areas in constituencies such as mine, however, and I am sure in that of the Minister of State's constituency in Cork, there are long stretches where the only amenities are takeaways, bookmakers and barbers. We need to see a front-loading of investment in transport, education, childcare and sports facilities in order that these communities will have a chance to develop, and it must be a sustainable, social approach as well as an environmental one.

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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As Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, I am responsible for setting the overall capital allocations for Departments and for monitoring monthly expenditure at departmental level. The responsibility for the management and delivery of individual investment projects, within the allocations agreed under the national development plan, rests with the individual sponsoring Department in each case. The Government has committed €165 billion for capital investment, as set out in the national development plan, NDP, published last October. The figures announced in the NDP represent a substantial increase of almost 50% on the previous NDP of 2018 and they target investment levels among the highest in the EU, at 5% of GNI*.

This year, €12 billion has been made available to Departments to spend on vital infrastructure in areas such as transport, education and health, as well as housing, water infrastructure and cultural amenities. The NDP includes indicative Exchequer allocations for each Department for a five-year period, 2021 to 2025, and overall capital expenditure ceilings out to 2030. This expenditure was considered and agreed to support those sectors that will be key to delivering the ten national strategic outcomes identified in the national planning framework, NPF, including NSO 1, relating to compact growth. NSO 1 aims to secure the sustainable growth of more compact urban and rural settlements supported by jobs, housing and essential services.

Initiatives such as town centre first, Croí Cónaithe and the urban regeneration and development fund are aimed at supporting the regeneration of our towns and cities and encouraging compact growth. In addition to these specific measures, substantial investment has been prioritised for sustainable transport, including active travel, BusConnects for all our major cities, MetroLink and DART+, all of which will further contribute to more sustainable cities and boost infilled development.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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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?

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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In agreeing an NDP out to 2030 and setting capital budgets for each Department out to 2025, we now have a multi-annual framework that will enable Ministers and their Departments to plan the delivery of vital infrastructure projects over a number of years. At €12 billion this year, we have the largest ever capital budget and there is an obligation on every Department to ensure we are working in a coherent and consistent manner towards the implementation of the national planning framework and implementing the NDP in its totality. That involves working towards compact growth, and we need to ensure all the levers we have, whether that is investment in healthcare, education or transport, are consistent with that objective. Moreover, there is the Project Ireland 2040 delivery board, which has overall responsibility for overseeing the delivery of the NPF and the NDP. As the Deputy will be aware, I recently concluded a process whereby I appointed a number of external members to that board to complement the experience and skills of the Secretaries General who continue to serve on it.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Land Development Agency now has 56 ha, most of which is located well outside the city boundaries and does not have established facilities, schools and so on. Surely the Minister recognises that if we are to develop that land into sustainable communities, the Department of Education will have to change its policy whereby it will not build until five or ten years after the need has been clearly established. That is too late if we are to allow them to become strong communities. Likewise, we cannot wait to roll out the public transport until years down the line. That is a challenge. We recognise green and sustainable climate consciousness has to be embedded in our NDP, but I do not think it is at present in the practice of many Departments, and I look to Deputy McGrath as, perhaps, the best Minister to challenge the coherence of that.

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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On that point, as the Deputy may be aware, we are setting up a new climate division within my Department because we sit at the centre of government and have a key role in ensuring Government policy will be applied consistently throughout the Departments. Agreeing the multi-annual capital framework has enabled Departments to undertake that co-ordinated forward planning he talked about. It is important schools be built in tandem with the delivery of homes in order that as children grow up, school places will be available and we will not always be playing catch-up in trying to retrofit infrastructure where homes have been built. When it comes to transport, for example, we have made an exception to our multi-annual policy and provided transport with the certainty of a €35 billion capital budget out to 2030. It is about ensuring all these Departments work together towards that NSO 1, which is about compact growth.