Niall Blaney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the Chamber to discuss the NDP I am delighted to see him here. He has had very trying times over the past nine months since taking office and it has certainly been a baptism of fire. That fire is far from being put out. Recovery and getting enough vaccines into the country is now to the fore but the consideration of where we go for the next 20 years is vital.

The timing of the NDP review is good. Since the onset of Covid-19, there has been a great opportunity for reset in considering how businesses and workers operate in this country.There needs to be a new approach from Government and a change of policy in relation to that. The national development plan 2020 to 2040 gives a real chance to put right the whole concept of balanced regional development. As the Minister knows, I come from the north-west. This affects not just county Donegal, but the whole general area of Donegal, Derry, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Sligo and Leitrim. This is an area of roughly 500,000 people. There has been neglect there, in my own county in particular, since the Troubles and we have been playing catch-up ever since. Now there is an opportunity to put that right. It needs to be grasped within the national development plan.

Since 2000, the early days of my political life, I battled hard with the Taoiseach at the time, Bertie Ahern, to have the N2-A5 upgraded to motorway status like other routes across the country. I made the argument at the time that traffic figures on the N2-A5 were over and above what they were on the Limerick route. Halfway through the Waterford route and even the Galway route, figures were no bigger at that stage in 2000. While that route was planned to go ahead, following the protracted negotiations of the Good Friday Agreement afterwards, it was shelved by the southern Government. People in the west are happy since then as they received a motorway to Wexford. Fair play to them for achieving that. It was back on the cards again but then the Stormont Assembly was taken down. That set the project back another three or fours years. It is vitally important the A5 project is driven from here because there is no interest from politicians in Northern Ireland to drive this project. There never was from day one. It is important we drive it because the hinterland on either side of the Border is neglected as a result of that. It is only by this Government driving the project that it can be delivered. I want the Minister to ensure this happens.

There are other opportunities that can come about as a result of the national development plan. A good friend of mine, Hugh Friel, is a Fanadian from the parish where I come from. He was once CEO and financial head of the Kerry Group and later was head of Tourism Ireland. He has been living for many years in Kerry. We often have conversations about tourism and how things can develop because we have lost out so much tourism-wise in Donegal. We are not at the table at all. We have not realised the same things as have the likes of the hotels in Killarney. While a lot of that was driven by the people themselves, there were also incentives provided over the years. Donegal has been cut off because of the Troubles. We believe there is an opportunity to level the playing field. There needs to be incentives provided. I come from an area called Fanad. We have a beach that has been voted the second most beautiful in the world. We have a lighthouse that was also voted the second most beautiful in the world. We have many other attractions but there are no beds and no hotels. Areas like that need to be looked at and given an incentive. Those pockets around the country need to be identified and separated and given tax incentives to bring proper tourism facilities to those areas.

Hugh Friel put one thing into my mind and it was in relation to marinas. He took me to a few in Kerry. Anywhere those marinas were built, the rest of the infrastructure followed afterwards. We know from the Volvo Ocean Race in Galway that there is tourism potential which we are not tapping into. Through the 20 year period of the national development plan, there is an opportunity to start building these around our coast so people can use out coastlines. There is hopping potential. There are opportunities within our waterways to provide smaller marinas. There is an opportunity to incentivise those small start-ups. There are many which are starting up.In areas that have not started up, these are some small incentives to encourage people to take up the cudgels and provide tourism services in locations that are attracting numbers but that do not have the requisite facilities in place.