Brendan Ryan (Labour)

It is a simple set of proposals put forward by our two parties which has a very simple start by which a plan is made and the resources are then allocated. What the present Government did was to first allocate lots of resources only to discover later that a plan was needed. It is now trying to retrofit a plan to resources. One must think before one starts. It is terrible that so much has been wasted and that the people of this country are confused as to how the richest or one of the richest countries in Europe or in the world can have one of the worst health services. This House needs to repeatedly debate the issue of health because otherwise the Government will forget about it. The Government would prefer to have the Tánaiste marching up and down a few hills to proclaim some law and order speech. The health of our citizens is the main concern of our citizens and it ought to be the main concern of this House.

On a few occasions both Senator Ross and I have mentioned in this House the submission on the national development plan made to the Government by the US Chambers of Commerce in Ireland whose members employ more than 100,000 people in this country. One issue mentioned in the submission which should have transfixed Government, but obviously did not, was that close to 50% of the companies reported that their US-based executives were now asking them not to hold meetings in Ireland because of the state of our transport system. According to the submission to Government by the US Chambers of Commerce in Ireland, this was reported by a total of 43% of the companies, not far off half the total number. After what has happened to Motorola in Cork, it is easy to imagine a US senior executive being persuaded that this place — which is impossible to get into and to get around — would not be the place they would want to sustain. The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, has stated that there is nothing wrong with our competitiveness but that we must be vigilant.

Everybody wants to beat the drum about wages but I refer to all the other issues, such as the broadband debacle which is getting worse, not better. The rural broadband scheme has been abandoned. Eircom is now reverting to the old days of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. Rather than trying to get prisoners out of jail, many politicians will be writing letters on behalf of people trying to get telephone lines or have their telephones repaired. We thought those days were behind us. Our technological, telecommunications, information technology and transport infrastructure is crumbling. This is the reason multinationals under pressure will not choose to stay here nor will they choose to come here. Parts of the country have not seen even a visit by a prospective investor in years because those investors cannot get to those places. It is a fact that one developer drove 20 miles outside Cork city and decided not to go any further because he regarded the transport system as being too bad to consider investing in the area.

We need a proper debate on this country's attractiveness to investment. Ireland is in decline as an attractive location for investment and this is not to do with wage levels. The debate on this issue should centre on the 350 well-paid, knowledge-based jobs in Cork which are about to disappear.