Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Bradford for his concluding comments. I fully accept and agree with his point about the need to plan for the long term. I am constantly aware of the need to balance the short-term pressures of today with the pressures and opportunities that are to come. As the Senator accurately said, those pressures and opportunities stretch well beyond electoral cycles and Dáil and Seanad terms. I put it to the Senator that we need to work on two challenges within this framework. The first challenge on which we need to work is very much an overall or general challenge for our country. It relates to the total amount of capital funding that is available for us to spend on all kinds of different projects, including those aimed at meeting the need that exists in areas such as education, housing and transport, for which I am responsible. We need to work on two variables within that. First, we need to focus on how we can increase the capacity of the economy and make choices within the economy to make sure we have enough money to spend. Second, we need to look at the expenditure constraints and rules we face in the first place. I do not want us to get to a point at which the funding that becomes available to our country is invested only in things that are affordable in the short run, such as the introduction of tax cuts or changes or the construction of infrastructure for which in the long run there is no sustainable need or which we cannot afford to maintain. We have to make progress in that area, and we are beginning to do so.

The second challenge with which we need to contend is the debate on how the country can make progress overall. I have responsibility for putting forward the case for transport in that context, and this project is a good example. I know the Senator is disappointed with the answer I have given. I can accept the reasons for his disappointment. He made the point in his opening contribution that I need to be very careful with the money that is available to me. It is for that reason that I am now justifying a decision the Senator does not like. I am working hard to come up with a plan that will make a strong case for rebuilding expenditure on our roads and our public transport network. In fact, I was engaged in that work this morning.

During the Celtic tiger period, this country substantially increased the amount of funding it was investing in transport infrastructure, to between 1.3% and 1.4% of our national income. The current figure is 0.5%. Our 50-year average as a country is 1%. We have to build our national average back up. If we do not, we will be locked into a cycle in which the kinds of problems about which the Senator has spoken, generally and in relation to this road, will continue to develop. I am working on that with my colleagues in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. I accept that they are trying to manage other competing demands. I am trying to put forward the overall case, which is that certain projects are justified purely on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis. If we add to that analysis a consideration of the economic development and road safety benefits of those projects, the case for the construction of these roads is significantly enhanced.

I thank the Senator for raising this case with me this morning. Of course I will reflect on it. I know there is a need for this project. I am sure the Senator did not expect me to come in and tell him the road is going ahead. I am not in any way taking his point in a flippant manner. I know people want this road project to go ahead, but I am not in a position today to say it can go ahead in its entirety, with the cost that is entailed.