Brendan Daly (Fianna Fail)

I am not being flippant. I have listened carefully to the Opposition spokespeople but have not heard a single constructive proposal from the Mullingar contingent, if one can call it that. We have not heard how they would tackle some difficulties in the overall thriving economy. No matter how well the Government does there will naturally be issues that create problems. These must be tackled and resolved. The public knows that, and expects that these things happen. The people are not fools, they know of such problems from their own businesses, whether one is a farmer having difficulty with his herd or a business man who has a problem disposing of a line of commodities he did not expect to move slowly. Everybody knows that difficulties arise.

We would like to hear from the Opposition what the alternative is, so that we can judge how it can make a meaningful change in the Government's direction. The Opposition's contribution so far today has been very disappointing.

I wish to comment on some of the Minister's opening remarks and explain how his proposals may inhibit rather than help the projected undertaking. I refer in particular to the last part of his speech wherein he referred to the new contract for public works. I presume this was initiated while discussion took place between the Government and the unions to find a way to tighten up the contracts and make them more effective in the execution and delivery of some of the large projects.

Last year, I met representatives of the 30,000 people employed in the construction industry in the mid-west. They had grave reservations about how that contract was taking effect, especially in regard to small companies. I raised the point they made at the time and am glad to have another opportunity to raise it. They said that if the bulk of the risk is transferred from whoever carried it before to some of the small construction companies they would not be able to fulfil all the detail of the contracts and would lose out on them. Some small construction companies might be forced into a situation in which it would be economically impossible to compete. This would lead to delays and frustrations in the schemes, bankruptcy, litigation and court hearings.

In the construction business people are well capable of negotiating, for example in County Clare there is a water investment programme worth approximately €196 million. A small village sewerage scheme costs approximately €9 million or €10 million. There are approximately 40 such schemes including sewerage and other water services. That programme has been charted since 2003 but very little of it, apart from some minor aspects, has been executed or is likely to be, under the present arrangement.

Approximately nine small village sewerage schemes are ready to issue contract documents. They have not advanced under the system contemplated whereby schemes are grouped together as units. Sometimes these schemes may be 30 miles apart in, for example, Ballyvaughan and Doolin and other smaller villages in the county. These have all been held up for the past three or four years.

Substantial capital allocations set aside in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government have not been drawn down because it is physically impossible to put them together under the present system. Will the Minister of State make inquiries through his office about some of the small drainage schemes which are holding up development?

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources recently discussed the inability of salmon to leap the weir in Kilkenny. There are hundreds of culverts and small river catchments from which salmon cannot escape because the culverts have been broken down through coastal erosion or whatever. There is no way to deal with these problems which are doing significant damage to fish and stocks. I will not go into detail about this today because it is an issue to discuss on another occasion.

The emphasis has been on drift netting and the damage it has done to fish stocks. Far more damage has been done to fish stocks, particularly salmon stocks, by the erosion of the old culverts resulting from local improvement work schemes 40 or 50 years ago. Enormous damage is being done to salmon stocks through the inability of fish to move upstream for the sake of €40,000 or €50,000.

I compliment the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Brennan, on the reforms he has undertaken on social affairs generally. I draw his attention to a number of anomalies that have arisen, especially concerning less well off sections of the community. For example, in the recent budget substantial increases were given in welfare payments to people in those categories. However, many elderly people living in council houses find that before they draw down their social welfare increases, their differential rents increase also. The result is that benefits from budget increases are eroded by further increases in differential rents and new refuse collection charges under the new privatisation system. The old system, whereby local authorities collected refuse and operated waiver schemes, is being superseded by this new privatised system which does not include waivers. This causes quite a bit of hardship for elderly people living alone.

Given the balanced development of the economy, the Government must not lose sight of the regions. This is why I wish to compliment the Minister of State on his decentralisation programme which should be accelerated. There has been a negative response from the Opposition whose members say they will look at decentralisation when they get back into Government, but it will never be examined if that happens.