Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State. This is an important debate on a number of levels. There is a need for the review and analysis of the national spatial strategy on the basis of my experience travelling outside Dublin through small towns and villages which are the backbone of our society. I notice repeatedly how quiet these towns and villages are at night, as well as the slow and steady drift of people leaving them to work elsewhere in the country or abroad. As I was getting ready for this debate, I was reminded of a book published on this topic in the 1960s by the late John Healy who was a journalist with The Irish Times. This famous book was entitled, No One Shouted Stop (The Death of an Irish Town), and in it he lamented the decline of community life and the population of many rural towns and villages.

It is a matter of enormous regret that we must have another discussion about how to sustain economic and community life outside the greater Dublin region. The Minister of State mentioned a number of reasons for this, the first of which is that the economic growth the country will enjoy again in the future will not be a zero sum game. Just because one region enjoys growth does not mean it will be at the expense of another part of the country. The experience of many other countries, for example, Finland, is that strong growth in the regions outside the capital city supplements growth in the region around the capital and does not happen at its expense. If we get to a point where there is a fair and an efficient allocation of resources throughout the State, which the national spatial strategy seeks to attain, this will maximise the welfare of the State and people, regardless of where they live, will have access to the opportunities we all want them to have.

The second reason it is becoming clearer the national spatial strategy is of such vital importance is sustainability. We are all aware of the paramount importance of sustainability which will only be achieved if there is integrated planning. Underpinning this is an acknowledgement that we cannot load more of the population into one region at the expense of others.

The third reason which is particularly relevant in our current circumstances is much of our planning and development policy in the past was driven by the fact the population was increasing so quickly. In recent years the population increased from 3.9 million to 4.4 million, the highest growth rate in the European Union. The increase in population generated economic growth and development throughout the State. That will not continue and the influx into the country is being replaced by a steady exodus. Last year, according to the Central Statistics Office, for the first time in recent history, the birth rate was ahead of the population growth rate generated by people moving into the country. This will place more pressure on towns and villages outside the capital city because the population growth they enjoyed spurred economic development, construction, retail development and so on, but that is no more.

For all these reasons, the review of the national spatial strategy and this debate are welcome. I am struck that many strategies are launched and not reviewed until new strategies are introduced to replace them. It is welcome that the review document provides a reasonably comprehensive assessment of the implementation of the previous strategy and where things stand. This is important because, as the Minister of State acknowledged, the two factors that drive development are public and private investment. We know to our cost that both streams will be more difficult to come by in the coming years.

While I welcome the review, it omits a number of issues which lead me and others to a more negative assessment of the current position than the review indicates. The ESRI described the national spatial strategy as "being largely aspirational, with few concrete measures. What is really missing is any adequate thought about what we are really trying to achieve and why". This theme is evident in the review in that it does not acknowledge flaws in the strategy regarding how Dublin has developed and how towns and cities outside it have not developed at the rate needed. There are three reasons for this. The decentralisation programme presented a great opportunity to ensure public service agencies were allocated more tightly to gateway hub towns and county capital towns. The conclusion of bodies which have reviewed the national spatial strategy and how it fits in with the decentralisation programme is that did not happen. It was a significant missed opportunity because one of the flaws in the strategy was it did not integrate economic activity and development tightly enough.

The second reason, as acknowledged, was the decision a number of years ago to suspend the gateway innovation fund amounting to €300 million. The Minister of State has stated the fund will be restored, with an allocation of €200 million. That is lower than the original commitment, but this is understandable in these times and the fund will commence in 2012. Nonetheless, the target was to have the fund up and running and implemented as part of the National Development Plan 2007-2013. I welcome its restoration, but it will only be available at the end of the period of implementation of the NDP. If it had been launched when money was available and the Government had more flexibility to allocate resources, it could have a made a significant difference to the implementation of the strategy.

The third reason is the legacy of overdevelopment. Reference is made time and again to the awful phrase, "ghost estates", and the awful impact they will have on communities. It is matter of huge regret, as a former member of a local authority, that we arrived at a position where this happened. The effect they will have on our ability to deliver a sustainable strategy will be fraught and difficult.

I have a number of suggestions to make on how the strategy could be amended and developed. When we review a strategy, it is not sufficient to only review its implementation, it is also appropriate to review whether the strategy is correct and whether additional choices can be made. I would like to address two issues. The first is to figure out the exact definition of a gateway town and region. The plan defines spatial strategy in terms of the delivery of physical infrastructure such as transport, utilities and so on. We need to find a way to integrate our industrial policy far more firmly into our spatial strategy and acknowledge that unless we have the economic activity in our gateway towns, cities and regions, it will not allow our physical infrastructure to be developed and it will not allow the development take place that will ensure a spatial strategy will be sustainable.

The second area is in respect of local government and governance strategies and systems outside of Dublin. We need to find a way of strengthening our regional authorities to provide a counterpoint to an over-centralised decision making process which leads to the allocation of resources in a way that does not fit in with the national spatial strategy. Those two changes would go a long way towards delivering the sustainable development of our country, which is what we all want.