Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House and I wish him well with the public sector pay talks. I have always held the view that we must have an integrated model where both public and private are respected. Looking back at public sector pay talks over the past four or five years, people need to be paid a fair wage for a fair day's work. It is extremely important that we look at the structures within the public sector where people can advance.One of the problems particularly affects the lower end. The majority of public servants are actually not that well paid. The problem is how to put the structures in place to allow people to advance and to allow talent to flourish. We have all met people in the public sector, many of whom are at a very low-ranking stage, and although they have huge ability, the opportunities do not come their way. When the Minister is looking at the overall pay aspect, that should be a key feature. He should look at innovation. The Revenue On-Line Service, ROS, was brought in by the Revenue Commissioners, and the restructuring of the public sector within Revenue has been highly successful. Other Departments have done fantastic work. Some have not. I do not wish to single out any Department but we know ourselves from our dealings with them. Apart from pay, we have to look at whether the public sector as it exists is fit for purpose in a modern age. That is what I am looking at.

Before I move on to capital spending, I will touch on a couple of points Senator McDowell made which I thought were very informative. Part V never worked. In my experience, having been an elected councillor, virtually all the Part V initiatives were bought out. They did not work. Part V was supposed to ensure 10% social housing and 10% affordable housing. There was absolute certainty for people. If they bought a house in an estate privately, they knew that 10% of the other houses were going to be social and 10% would be affordable in order that people who could not afford to buy privately could buy. Everyone knew the model and how it worked. It is almost a throwback to the old model in which there were clusters of local authority housing alongside private homes in a town or city. It worked and it was a good social model. Instead, the Part V initiatives were bought out and suddenly people were paying exorbitant prices. The houses were being sold on the basis that there would be no local authority housing within the estate. It created enormous confusion. The council then was required to come back in and purchase houses. It made things difficult on both sides. If we bring in a law, it should be implemented without fear or favour. Part V was a failure. It has come back in again. People need certainty.

The Minister referred to dereliction orders. Dereliction orders per sedo not really work. All they do is put a levy on the building, which racks up every year. It is a charge. It does not deal with the building itself. It does not bring it back into useful purpose. It is something we need to look at. It is slightly outside the box and I know it is being looked at.

I will move on to the capital spending. I want to be specific. I represent Limerick and the Minister will be well aware of how strongly I feel about the M20 project. I am glad to see that it has now taken centre stage politically at Government, national and local level across parties. Everyone in Limerick in particular is talking about it. I am glad. It is something for which I have campaigned for a long time. I feel very strongly about it. I held a public meeting in Limerick on the issue of the M20 and I encouraged people to make submissions under the mid-term capital review. I expect a good number of people and business interests will. I think it is always important to take the good with the bad at public meetings, and one thing that came up was issues with landowners and other people. This was when the M20 project was under way previously and before it was discontinued for financial reasons back in 2011. The process must be looked at once again to make sure it is fit for purpose.

For me it is very simple. The M20 stands on its own merits. The two major cities outside of Dublin are not linked by a motorway. If we are looking at balanced regional development as a country, a key concern is that it would be terrible if our economy's sustainability was jeopardised because our infrastructure lagged behind. The M20 is the key road infrastructure that needs to be dealt with now. On safety grounds, there was an accident on the existing N20 today. There have been a multitude of accidents. It is unsafe. Anyone who has travelled the existing N20 from Limerick to Cork at commuter time will know what it is like going though Charleville and Buttevant. It is tortuous. We must link the two cities to cut down commuter times. We should be able to get from Limerick to Cork in an hour. It is currently about an hour and a half. Shortly, we will be able to get from Limerick to Galway in an hour. There should be no reason a person cannot get from Cork to Galway in two hours, obviously coming through the capital of the mid-west and west, Limerick. We are exceptionally well located strategically as a city, but the M20 itself is hugely important.

I welcome the fact the Minister, Deputy Ross, ran with my proposal to extend €1 million to allow the pre-planning process to get under way. I find it astounding that people misjudged and misunderstood what I was attempting to do. I was attempting to get the M20 off the ground again. There are two aspects to any projects. There is the aspect of momentum and not losing time, and there is the funding aspect. Funding does not, however, need to be in place overnight for the entire project. A project is made up of pre-planning within Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, design, route selection and a multitude of things. They take time. If they do not get under way, time is lost. TII, formerly the National Roads Authority, is now looking at setting up for pre-planning to allow design consultants to be appointed and to allow the project effectively to get under way. No more time is being lost. The clock was stopped up to a short time ago. We now have the M20 project rolling again. People missed the point. It is not about having all the funding in place. It is about ensuring it is on the agenda again and that it is active again, which it is.

I have a few very quick questions for the Minister. When does he anticipate concluding the review of the submissions on the mid-term capital plan, more especially on the M20? Will the submissions be made public? When does he anticipate making an announcement? I want to see us looking at how robust the costing of €1 billion is and whether savings can effectively be made. If we allow that it is approved as a project and comes back into the capital plan, will we allow consultants to begin designing and allow this project to progress? It will make such a difference to Limerick, the mid-west, Cork, Galway and Ireland Inc. I feel passionately about this. I want to see it in the capital plan and funded and built as quickly as possible.