John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

A body of opinion among economic analysts cautions that the NDP may give rise to inflationary problems. It is legitimate for Opposition Members and the public to question the Government's ability to deliver. Senator Mansergh and others will be familiar with the many areas of the last plan which were not delivered, such as the inter-urban routes which were originally estimated to cost €5.6 billion but are now projected at €16 billion, even though less than 50% of the work that should have been completed has been carried out.

Regional development probably represents the biggest under spend in the last national development plan. Different speakers have committed themselves to regional development. Senator Mansergh mentioned decentralisation as part of regional development. It is ironic that he should mention a plan that three years ago the Government proposed would be completed by now with 10,000 people decentralised. Only 700 people have been decentralised at a time when it was supposed to have been finished. Some 700 others who were already working outside Dublin are covered by the plan, but they cannot be included. It is understandable for Opposition spokespersons to raise the decentralisation programme, on which the Government parties have failed even more miserably than they have on most of the other matters they have failed to deliver in course of their ten years in office.

I spoke about regional development. Under the last national development plan the Government promised to spend more than €4 billion in the BMW region. However, only 60% of the allocated funding, €2.4 billion, was spent under the last national development plan. The Government promised to spend €656 million on e-commerce and communications measures in the last national development plan. However, only 15% of what it announced, €100 million, was spent. The Government promised to spend €446 million on the child care programme. By the end of 2005 it had only spent €273 million, 60% of what it committed in the last national development plan.

In the last national development plan the Government promised to spend €1.2 billion on back to education initiatives and only spent €600 million, half of what was announced. In the area of health, the Government promised to spend €1.3 billion on non-acute continuing care, but has spent only €844 million, 65% of what should have been delivered. The Government only spent 35% of the resources allocated in the last national development plan to water management and rehabilitation initiatives including water conservation programmes. The rural water investment scheme was also under-funded with only 54% of the original target realised.

The mismatch between the headline figure announced by the Government and what was delivered is stark and raises legitimate questions. In following the last national development plan it is reasonable to suggest that the systems are not in place to see the plan implemented as the Government has proposed. Today's national newspapers reported that the Government had spent more than €360,000 on the launch of the development plan. This included the cost of media presentations, publications and the printing of the document itself. That is a staggering amount and it could have been done for considerably less.

The biggest failure in the last national development plan was in the area of broadband delivery. The Minister responding at the end of the debate should outline what new scheme the Government proposes to put in place now that the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources has officially dropped the rural broadband scheme that was in place. While I accept it was not delivering, we now have no scheme. Countless small businesses, mainly in rural Ireland, will face serious difficulties in the next few years if no scheme is initiated in the area of broadband.

It is clear that there is a crisis of confidence. Despite the huge investment of taxpayers' money, improvements in infrastructure have been too slow, too limited and too costly. The failure to deliver is the legacy of a decade of project mismanagement and waste, and a decade of missed opportunity. It is the legacy of Government failures and policy inconsistencies in a number of areas. The Taoiseach has shown a lack of strategic vision and clear prioritisation. There has been a lack of ministerial accountability for project performance. There has been a lack of reform in the construction sector to increase competition and capacity. There has been a diversion of scarce construction resources from public infrastructure projects into tax-driven boom projects. There has been inadequate investment in project management skills in the public sector. There has been an absence of sophisticated cost-benefit analyses to help project prioritisation.

There have been last minute politically driven changes in project design and inadequate provision of planning staff for local authorities and An Bord Pleanála leading to significant delays for major projects. Yesterday, An Bord Pleanála postponed a number of decisions across the country for two months because of lack of staff in its operations. There is poor co-ordination between different State bodies in major infrastructure projects. We have a defective compulsory purchase order system, which delayed major infrastructure projects. We have ineffective community consultation on many of those major infrastructure projects in recent years.

The message Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats have sent to the public in the past ten years is clear. They are saying to the taxpayers: "This may be your money, but we have it now and we will spend it as we want to spend it. We will continue to waste it over the lifetime of the next national development plan". I have news for Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats. After the general election they will not get the opportunity to continue to waste and mismanage public resources in the next five years.