Pat Casey (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the Chamber.I also welcome the review of the national development plan. Senator Gavan mentioned that he was looking for a link to Shannon Airport. He may get it more quickly than the one to Dublin Airport at the rate we are going for that particular link.

He made another point about now being the cheapest time to get money. For someone who is in business and is being asked to borrow more money, it always has to be paid back at some stage and we must remind ourselves of that, even though when it is the State's money, one might not be quite as concerned.

The review of the national development plan was warranted and indeed necessary. The plan was framed at a time where we did not think we would be living with Covid-19 nine months on. The review was agreed prior to our knowing what the impact Covid-19 would have on how we live our lives into the future. There is an element missing in this review, which is the impact Covid-19 will have on how we as a society live into the future because the NDP is aligned and fully linked to the national planning framework. We must admit that Covid-19 has changed some clear policies in the national planning framework. People are talking about primary legislation whereby employers will have to give every employee an opportunity to work to work at home, which will change the whole dynamic of society and how we look at it. When we look at capital investment, if that is the way in which society is moving, such investment should move in that direction, rather than where the national planning framework specifies at present. Even in the area of public transport, if we are all going to start working from home, if that is a figure of 20%, that will change the dynamics as to where the investment in public transport should be.

We also need to look at the impact Covid-19 has had on the city centres, which probably have experienced an impact worse than any of the rural areas. How do we re-vision our cities of the future as a result of Covid-19? The national planning framework does not take account of that. Although I appreciate the review, my concern is whether there is a way in which we can Covid-19-proof it. How can we take the Covid-19 policies we are talking about here, bring them into the national development plan and align these with the policy of the national planning framework?

Many people have spoken about Irish Water and our water infrastructure. This is the one critical piece of infrastructure needed everywhere, regardless of whether one is in a city or small village. Given the remit under which Irish Water was set up and the horizon within which it was trying to operate as to commercial viability, the small towns and rural villages were never going to get a say in respect of that capital funding. While I accept that each local authority has been asked for its three priority projects and I hear that another scheme may be announced during the summer, that is not good enough. I have always said that a percentage of the funding that is given to Irish Water every year should be ring-fenced for villages and towns with a population under 5,000 persons. That would mean there would be a continuous fund available to villages and towns under that population size, which would allow them to grow at a sustainable level. Two dynamics in respect of housing are happening at present and these play into this debate. There is great demand in our cities and urban areas while there is no demand in the rural areas. There are staggering prices in urban areas, whereas builders will not build houses in rural areas because it is not viable to do so. There are two competing actions needed to address both situations. A key part of that is there is no infrastructure in our villages to attract developers into them.

Town and village renewal is also critical as we move forward, with the over-shop living initiative also being mentioned. When we looked at this issue in the housing committee, we found many of the problems concerned regulations and standards because one is dealing with older properties. The question is how, when one goes to renovate them, does one convert them to the standards of today, as opposed to the previous standards. There are issues around ventilation and fire specifications, which may prevent this. We need to look at how we can overcome that.We need to revitalise our towns and make them into living spaces where people can raise their families in a nice environment. From a local authority point of view, we are aware that the commercial side of towns is much too big. We need to make that side more compact and enable people to live outside it.

In the few minutes I have left it would be remiss of me not to mention Wicklow, which lost out on public transport in the previous national development plan. Specifically, rail was never mentioned and the Government just maintained the existing level of services. The cost of the Arklow waste water treatment plant has increased to over €100 million. That project will be presented to the Minister's Department. People in Arklow have waited over 30 years for a waste water treatment plant and Irish Water is currently being fined on a daily basis.

We can invest all we like in housing and I agree that we should do so. However, the bottleneck occurs in the process of delivering housing. It is the planning process and the process in the Department that are causing the bottlenecks in delivering housing.