Tom Shehan (Fine Gael)

There are 40 new schools. I listened with great interest to the Minister, Deputy Quinn, when he outlined the demographics and so on. These will not be your two and three-teacher schools. Many of these national schools will be equipped for up to 700 children, while secondary schools will be even larger, to the best of my knowledge. This is to cater for the demographics.

As I outlined earlier, education, health and a feeling of safety in one's home are important. The latter is something which does not come under the heading of what we are discussing today, but we do need to protect our Garda force as much as we possibly can. They are the three main things that people expect. There is realism among the public about where we are, or rather, where we have been driven to, and they want the present Government to get us out of that and get us back on an even keel.

Regarding investment in infrastructure, I am glad the road network, mainly the motorway network, has been vastly improved over the years. Now the concentration will be on maintaining our primary and secondary road networks. I applaud that because the secondary road network was neglected in favour of the motorways. The important point here is access to the regions. I am from a very peripheral area in Kerry South and access to our region is not great. From Dublin to Cork and Dublin to Limerick the roads are excellent, but unfortunately the road from Cork via Macroom and Ballyvourney is in an awful state, which is hindering progress in our region. From the other side, there is a motorway to Mitchelstown, but access to Kerry via Mallow is not good enough. I would like to think that will not be forgotten about. While I applaud and welcome the intention to maintain the road infrastructure we have, access to the most peripheral areas should not be forgotten.

I welcome the children's hospital very much, and that is where the funding has gone. Primary health care effectively consists of looking after people in their homes rather than in hospital. There is a bit of a contradiction here when one considers the cutbacks in home help hours and so on. There should be a rejig in this regard.

Recently, the Minister's colleague, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, announced the creation of 95 jobs in one of his imaginative schemes, but it was at a cost of about €2 million. Is that right? I always understood that investment in jobs and so on worked out at about €100,000 per job. This project works out at about €200,000 per job, or is that a misunderstanding on my part? If that is what the creation of jobs will cost, we have a hard road ahead of us.

I recently read that the Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Hayes, hopes to introduce reform of procurement procedures which will save up to €2 billion. Is this possible? If such savings can be made by changing the way the State does business, that is a proactive and positive measure.

The Minister mentioned investment in agriculture. This is the one industry that is providing a serious return at present. The goals set for Ireland in Food Harvest 2020, to do with food security and so on, have ensured that the graph is going only one way in agriculture. I commend the investment in agriculture because it will be more than returned to the Exchequer.

Public private partnerships have been used in many areas to provide services and facilities. One thing that really galls me is the issue of toll roads. These were built through public private partnerships, but the Government had to buy them back, and the amount it had to pay sickened me. I expect that more appropriate fiscal measures will be put in place to ensure we are not fleeced at the end of the line. Maybe that is how business was done by previous Administrations.

Tourism is a massive growth area. We already have 10% growth in this area, although this has dropped. The potential in tourism is phenomenal and we really need to grasp the opportunity. Recently I spoke to the Minister for Finance seeking €1.5 million for a tourism proposal, and he said that if I wanted it for capital, he does not have it and he does not expect to have it in the future. The Minister spoke in his presentation about means of obtaining funding, be it through private investment or public private partnerships, and said that pension funds and so on are where the real money is. I mentioned to the Minister for Finance the regeneration project that is currently under way in Limerick and said that this proposal, for €1 million or €1.5 million, would regenerate the whole of south Kerry, creating jobs and bringing massive inward investment. I hope that specific projects such as that will be no-brainers for the Government, as they will create jobs and bring employment into areas that are under pressure. I hope they will be considered in a sympathetic manner.

Overall, I compliment the Minister on the work he is doing. I am glad he has kept to the core delivery of services in health, education and job creation.