Seanad debates

Wednesday, 7 March 2018

Project Ireland 2040: Statements

 

10:30 am

Photo of Gerry HorkanGerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I recall one occasion where a certain Minister reminded me that Senators do not have constituencies and I replied that I had one where I live. I am a representative in the national Parliament, just like Senator Craughwell and most Senators. We are elected, thankfully, by the 31 local authorities in the country along with members of the outgoing Seanad and incoming Dáil. Senators are national politicians. Therefore, I am as interested in Buncrana in Donegal, New Ross in Wexford, Carlingford in Louth and Dingle in Kerry as I am in south Dublin. I am as interested in south Dublin as everywhere else. Today, we are discussing a national development plan that seems to revolve around the M20 motorway. I am concerned that the Minster of State, in his speech, has listed bullet points for Limerick and the southern region. When we discussed the mid-term review of the capital plan in the House, I was not only the only Senator from Dublin, I was the only Senator from Leinster out of a total number of 60 Senators. Every other contributor that was present was from Connacht, Ulster and Munster. I just wanted to put that fact on record.

I welcome the national development plan, as I am sure we all do. I was Chair of the Dublin Regional Authority when the national development plan was launched in 2007 and it was a fantastic project. To be fair, it was well endorsed and welcomed by the Opposition. Lots of the plan happened but some of it did not. We need to remember that we have a comprehensive Luas project in Dublin that we would like to expand. The project is certainly a lot bigger than it was 15 years ago. We now have quality bus corridors, QBCs, that did not exist 20 years ago. We have lots of very important strategic infrastructure. A national motorway programme has been built and at the time people said that the boom was blown. Let us face it, we have a motorway project that has given us motorways to Galway, Limerick, Waterford, Cork and Belfast, which is fantastic. Let us not say that every penny that was spent during the boom years never delivered.

I happen to be a chairperson of a secondary school, and I was a chairperson of a different secondary school during the boom years. I can confirm that lots of windows and laboratories were replaced and many schools were built. I can confirm that lots of improvements were made during NDPs in the past. National development plans are very important. We have to acknowledge that the difficulty with this plan, which is probably a good development in some ways for the Government, is the spin associated with it. For the past two or three weeks we have not been talking about the plan. We have had a chat about "Snowmageddon" and all the rest but we have moved the dialogue away from the actual content of the €113 billion, €115 billion or €116 billion plan; the figure has been moved around somewhat. The dialogue is all about the strategic communications unit, SCU, the spin and the advertorials, which is very unfortunate for Project Ireland 2040. We can forget about how good or bad it is for the Minister of State, Kevin Boxer Moran, the Fine Gael Party or the Minister, Deputy Naughten, who did not manage to make the cut in the Athlone advertorial or non-advertorial. The issue is that we have a national development plan that has been manipulated and massaged by central government. I am not blaming the Minister of State who is in the Chamber. I have no doubt he is a man of integrity and honesty who is doing his best for his area, but equally for national Government as much as for the people of rural Limerick. However, we have a project now that is mired in spin, the strategic communications unit, John Concannon and everything that goes with that. The difficulty now is that we have plans and projects that are being constantly re-announced. I have the height of respect for Senator Paddy Burke and Senator Colm Burke who are in the Chamber and will have to deliver a response on behalf of the Government, and more power to them. However, they have been put in a difficult and unfortunate position in that they have to stand up here and defend the spin machine I do not believe either of them or the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, created, but they are stuck with it.

The reality is that we have invested €116 billion in a project, €42 billion of which was announced in 2015. It does not tackle issues in the short and medium term. As somebody who lives on the expanded Luas line, the Acting Chairman, Senator Craughwell, will be aware that the Luas service is worse now than ever was the case. He or I cannot deny that. I spoke to the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, about that in the finance committee and he said we had a thriving green line and that he was sure the red line was equally as good. We are stuck in a situation now where its performance is far below what it was previously.

The plans have failed to establish a new national infrastructure commission to take the politics out of these long-term issues. The local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, has not really worked. As raised by my party leader, the Government strategic communications unit has paid for advertising content that is not identified as such. It has been raised many times since the announcement of Project Ireland 2040. It is genuinely sad that we are here in the Seanad discussing that two or three weeks after the launch of the national development plan. I got this copy of the national development plan today, not yesterday, two weeks ago or three weeks ago. The hard copy arrived in my pigeon hole today, and I saw copies in many other Members' pigeon holes. I will not go back to look at the date it was launched and count the number of days between then and now but it is at least three weeks since it was launched.

I wish the national development plan well. We need balanced regional development. We need Dublin to be a thriving city region competing with other city regions across Europe and the world. The Minister of State has a hard job defending the plan. It is unfortunate for him that he has been sent here by the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, to defend it. I will support him and the Government in everything they are trying to do on behalf of Project Ireland, but the way it was launched and the way it has been addressed so far is unfortunate.

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