Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I am delighted to have the opportunity to say a few words on the national spatial strategy. The Government missed a golden opportunity with regard to the spatial strategy plan for the country, as happened previously in connection with the reorganisation of the local authorities when the then Government missed a similar opportunity to put a proper plan in place. We now have a mess. If one speaks to council staff and the public, one finds people are getting a worse service from the local authorities than heretofore. The opportunity was missed, as regards their reorganisation, to make them more efficient. There is no reason local authorities may not be as efficient as any other business. They have certain obligations to provide public services and so forth but there is no reason why they cannot be as efficient as private enterprise. I believe they can be.

The Government should have put more thought into how it went about devising the spatial strategy plan, particularly as regards regional balance. As Senator MacSharry said, there were debates on this in the BMW region over the last couple of weeks. I will not be repetitive, but I would like the Minister of State to clarify the following sentence in his speech:

The ten-year transport investment framework, now in preparation will take account of the linkages between transport, land use and spatial planning, and will be fully informed by, and support the policies set out in the national spatial strategy.

This is akin to a chicken and egg situation. Local authorities put county development plans in place, which only last five years. There is now an obligation for county development plans to be replaced every five years. We now see that two counties in particular, Laois and Offaly, have introduced county development plans which zone land in rural villages within their respective local authorities.

With regard to what the Minister of State has said concerning linkages to transport, land use and spatial planning being fully informed, if a local authority decides to zone in a rural town and there is no back-up from the Government as regards proper access to roads, rail, air or whatever transport for the ensuing ten years, what will be the position? Senator Kitt mentioned the Sligo to Ennis rail link, or as some people like to call it, the Sligo-Waterford link, which would be part of a European rail network. There is no reason why there could not be a linkage from Westport via Castlebar, Claremorris, Tuam, Athenry and into Galway. I believe larger centres must be grown in some areas, whether it is in the west, the south or north, to draw away from Dublin, which has become a magnet for every other region. To this the Government must put the infrastructure in place in the poorer regions. There is no other way to proceed. The transport infrastructure for national primary and secondary routes, rail and air access must be put in place. If not, it cannot be achieved. As Senator MacSharry pointed out, an outer relief road is now being planned for Dublin. This road might stretch from Drogheda to Navan and on to Naas, and probably on to Laois and Wicklow. If that road was built on the west coast, from Limerick to Galway to Sligo, it might draw from the magnet on the east coast. If one goes through the figures in place for infrastructure along the east coast, it is unbelievable in comparison to the figures for the west coast. How can the regions be developed if investment is not being provided?

We have to go back to the kernel of the Minister's speech on the linkages between transport, land use and spatial planning. Greater debate will have to take place in this regard. Above all, infrastructure in the poorer regions will have to be put in place, such as water, sewerage systems, national primary and secondary routes and especially rail transport. While this may not look right from the financial planning point of view, it is the way to go in the long term. Other than that, Dublin will become even more of a magnet. If all the infrastructure is developed in the greater Dublin area, more and more people and industries will gravitate to that region.

This development will leave local authorities in other areas in a poorer condition with a less buoyant rate base. In County Mayo, a new waste water treatment unit is required for Castlebar which will cost more than €50 million and is being developed under a public private partnership. The Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government is now looking for the local authority to raise €12 million to €14 million so that the scheme can get off the ground. If the local authority does not have a good rate base, from where can it raise these extra funds? Where can it raise the necessary local contribution to put funding mechanisms in place to back up departmental funding?

No industry has been provided in Mayo over the past seven or eight years. It is incredible to think that a county of that size has not had any new jobs created in the past eight years. We have lost 1,000 jobs in Castlebar with the closure of Volex as well as 350 jobs in Westport. Similar things have happened in other areas and that means the rate base will decline. This will make it more difficult for local authorities to raise an initial contribution to get backing from the Department. Greater debate will have to take place about the issue of linkage between transport, land use and spatial planning. More funding will have to be put in place for the regions, especially for services, roads, railways and water treatment units.