Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I suppose having a national development plan is better than not having one. That is a positive note on which to start. I wholeheartedly and enthusiastically agree with Senator Morrissey that it appears that our national capacity to manage projects is more akin to a Third World country than a country that has aspirations to be a leader of the modern technological revolution. This morning I read the league table of competitiveness on the World Economic Forum website. I share with Professor Paul Krugman, a healthy scepticism about the concept of national competitiveness. Professor Krugman was for many years a professor of economics in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is now based in a university in New York. One runs into all sorts of problems if one looks deeply at competitiveness, but everybody uses it. The World Economic Forum provides reflective assessments, if nothing else.

It is worth noting that notwithstanding much that is said and written here, the most competitive economy in the world, according to the World Economic Forum, is not the United States, but one of the boring Northern European social democratic countries, Finland. Up there well ahead of us in the top ten are Sweden, Norway, Denmark and The Netherlands. If we are to have a plan that will make us able to be, in the jargon of the day "growth competitive", we would do well to reflect on how those countries conduct their business. They do it with real pragmatism. They have a strong record of trying to find out what works best and doing it, and they have faith in the future.

I do not know whether we need motorways from Dublin to Waterford. There is a good case for saying that we do not need separate motorways to Waterford, Cork and Limerick. That is a second argument. The road and transport infrastructure of countries such as Sweden, Denmark, Norway and The Netherlands, which has a population of 14 million in an area the size of Munster, is very efficient. Any problems this country has in land acquisition for infrastructural development must be multiplied four or fivefold in a country such as The Netherlands, given its population density and size.

I would love the Minister of State to tell us what is the average compensation being paid by the National Roads Authority for agricultural land per acre and what multiplier of the current use value it represents? There was a great kerfuffle when the Minister of State was in another role and then all was sweetness and light. When I hear one half of a conflict suddenly going quiet I smell a good deal for the now silent parties. How much has that cost?