Aideen Hayden (Labour)

Premiums for decentralisation were simply thrown out and scattered to the four winds. It was a bit like "The Late Late Show", where there was one for everyone in the audience.

I ask the Minister to dust off the Buchanan report. We have an opportunity to link clear national and regional policy with our infrastructure and capital investment programme. There needs to be a clear link between regional and national priorities and money spent. It should be spent in a transparent and costed fashion using principles of best practice. We need to arrive at a situation where every citizen, taxpayer and individual in the State can look at the decisions made and know exactly how and why they were arrived at.

I welcome the commitments to jobs and job creation in the capital programme. I suggest the funding that travels through the IDA and SFI be robustly assessed and targeted to achieve the maximum regional impact.

I ask the Minister to exercise some caution with regard to the housing capital programme. The current priorities have moved from traditional construction acquisitions policies and the buy and build model towards leased-based and revenue funded options. Local governments have a long and proud tradition as housing providers in this country. Although the current Government strategy is focused on moving current support anything away from the Department of Social Protection towards local authorities, there is a real danger that we will find ourselves in a crisis situation with regard to housing much more quickly than would anticipate.

We are currently relying on the overhang in the housing system but the reality is that we have almost 100,000 households on the housing waiting lists. We also have a defunct banking system which will not lend for housing purposes. We will very quickly find ourselves, given the level of housing needs, population growth and a defunct banking system, in a position where we will not be able to deal with housing need. I ask the Minister to keep that at the back of his mind in terms of our approach to housing.

I welcome the Minister's commitment to the Limerick regeneration project and his announcement that other regeneration projects will be strategically prioritised. I am well aware, as we all are, of the misery of the residents of Dolphin House, St. Michael's Estate, O'Deveney Gardens and other housing developments awaiting regeneration. These people were left entirely in the lurch by the last Government. The living conditions in these State housing projects is deplorable and a cause for shame. We must bear in mind the experience of those residents when considering future public private partnerships. Such arrangements are not the answer in every case.

I thank the Minister for seeking the views of the Seanad on this issue.