Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan. It is my first opportunity to congratulate him in public on his appointment as Minister of State. Knowing Deputy O'Donovan, as I do, over a number of years, he brings great ability and energy, and high principle to the office and I wish him well in it.

Through a lot of hard work, great effort and great courage on the part of the previous Government and this one, we have come to the point that we can have this discussion, that we can have a balanced budget, that we are significantly reducing national debt and that we are now in position where we have credibility from a borrowing perspective to get attractive interest rates, and that we are now in a position to engage strategically in capital investment. I suppose there are a couple of big objectives that we need to achieve through the capital investment. The Minister of State, as a former teacher like myself, will be familiar with long-term and short-term objectives in teaching plans. The biggest long-term objective we have is to maintain sustainable populations in rural Ireland and maintain a balance, to deal with what Senator Coffey aptly describes as the "vortex" that is Dublin at present and to get a level a decentralisation in terms of population and sustainable communities throughout the country. With that in mind, the commitment to road infrastructure and transport infrastructure is a vital one, both in terms of achieving inward investment in rural Ireland and in terms of its development and quality of life, and attractiveness to live there.

In the county that I and the distinguished Acting Chairman, Senator Wilson, come from, we do not have railways. We do not have immediate access to local airports, etc., and we depend on the road infrastructure in a big way. For that reason, the road infrastructure is vital. In that context, I would commend two projects in County Cavan to the Minister of State that are relevant to both Cavan and Monaghan. The first is the east-west link, linking Dundalk to Sligo. That goes through the critical towns of Shercock, Cootehill and Carrickmacross throughout my constituency. That project is so important because we have the large employer, Carton, in Shercock, employing 600 to 800 local people in a place one would not necessarily have food processing where one would not readily attract alternative employment, and Abbott in Cootehill. That east-west link is critical. I commend that project to the Minister of State. It will stand up to any analysis and any objective scrutiny. I would also commend the extension of the M3, with the bypassing of Virginia to Cavan town as a critical piece of infrastructure for that region. I would appeal to the Minister of State to look seriously at those in the context of transport.

The Minister of State has a commitment professionally, as I and virtually all of us in the House have, to the regionalisation of education. Indeed, I note the Acting Chairman is highly involved in that project at home too. We are committed to getting the new third level campus, the post leaving certificate college, to Cavan. It is committed to in the capital plan. In his response, I would like the Minister of State to restate his public commitment to it. It would mean so much to people. It is a vital, long awaited project up there. That is a necessary exercise, if we have any genuine commitment to regionalisation and to maintaining sustainable communities outside of Dublin.

I agree with all the points the Minister of State makes in his address around structural reform, planning, procurement and good value for money. That is prudent and right. What people want with their hard-earned success is that it would not be squandered. Of course, I agree with those and I will not labour them, but the Minister of State would be the first to agree that we need inward investment in rural areas. I cannot go about attracting inward investment to, and we cannot have successful trade mission for, a place such as Cavan until one gets the infrastructure. Crucial to that infrastructure are the roadways, the college and, as referenced by Senator Coffey, broadband. Broadband is most crucial. I accept it is a different debate in the sense it is the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Denis Naughten's, specific responsibility, but it is enormously vital.

My colleague, Senator Mulherin, opened with the contention that we have to achieve with this capital plan viable communities around this country, particularly in the disadvantaged areas of the Border region and the mid-west that have suffered hugely. The Border region, in my area, has suffered enormously down the years. We have to right that wrong and correct that imbalance. I appeal to the Minister of State to see that happens. It is a great and exciting opportunity for the Minister of State and for all of us to put something right here, to make it likely that people will want to live in counties such as Cavan and Monaghan and right through the west of Ireland, and that we will get those in the aptly described "vortex" or population centre that is Dublin to choose other centres.

Of course, there must be a match between the capital plan and the spatial strategy into the future.

I contend that the projects that I have mentioned will so do.