Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State will eventually throw mud at other political parties when they are in government and he finds himself unable to unravel what he has done. A decision to avoid proper democratic scrutiny by the Oireachtas of a major national plan brings us into dangerous territory. This is the sixth plan and also the largest date with the longest timeframe. It is wrong that there is no proper debate on it and that the Houses will not vote on it.

I am asking for an annual review to allow the relevant Oireachtas committee to debate the plan and discuss its progress. There is no point in having a 20-year strategy for the country if we do not know where it is going and we cannot review it annually. Under the review, all relevant economic data on the various projects would be made available. Some progress has been made in developing a capital tracker in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Having studied the tracker, I find the information available on the website extremely vague as it does not provide any details. None of the documentation required to carry out a review has been published. The tracker, which is little more than one line, is poor and the International Monetary Fund will not be satisfied if it is no improved. It certainly falls a long way short of the recommendations made by the IMF.

I am not sure whether the Minister of State is willing to accept these amendments which seek to ensure major capital investment projects are not made on a political whim. I am not saying that will occur under this Government but there will probably be four, five, six or seven Governments between now and 2040. Will we allow each of them to make decisions based on a political whim as opposed to factual, hardcore information on financial economics and whether the projects stand up?

The national planning framework provides for major investment in the future of the country. It will dictate where people live, work and access services, how we deal with the housing crisis, how we ensure more people live on the west coast and not only on the east coast, and how major capital investment projects by the State are funded and progressed. The toolkit is available in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. While the public spending code is mentioned in the national planning framework documentation, I emphasise the word "mentioned" because it does not provide the specifics that are required.

This will be our only opportunity to debate the legislative standing of the national planning framework if the Minister of State does not accept these amendments. I hope he will do so and I will be interested in hearing his reasoning in the event that he does not do so. What is the reason for the reluctance to allow both Houses democratic oversight of both of these national plans? Will the Minister of State explain the fear of doing so?Will Fine Gael turn around in five or ten years and blame the new Government, of which it may not be a part, for wrong decisions made on public expenditure on capital projects when it could have put the necessary oversight mechanism in place in 2018? The Minister of State has the tools available to do that now but Fine Gael will not be able ten years from now to blame anyone else for overrunning on budgets unless it is willing to put the legislative provisions in place now that would address that. I would be interested to hear what the Minister of State has to say on that matter.