Written answers

Tuesday, 20 February 2018

Department of Public Expenditure and Reform

National Development Plan

Photo of Micheál MartinMicheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

165. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will report on the launch of the national development plan. [8182/18]

Photo of Paschal DonohoePaschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

On 16 February last, the Government launched the National Development Plan (NDP) 2018 - 2027 following a special Cabinet meeting at the Institute of Technology in Sligo.  The NDP comprises an investment programme of €116 billion, of which €91 billion relates to Exchequer capital investment and the balance of €25 billion is State-backed investment by commercial State Owned Enterprises and other State bodies. 

This NDP adopts a new approach to public capital investment through the strict alignment which has been achieved with the objectives and priorities of the new spatial strategy set out in the new National Planning Framework (NPF).  This represents a marked departure from the unconnected and uncoordinated approach between spatial strategy and public investment policy over the first half of the last decade which contributed to the development of some of the major challenges that the NDP and NPF are designed to address, including securing greater regional balance, supporting economic growth and development of rural communities and meeting climate change objectives.

The Deputy may wish to note some of the major reforms and innovations in terms of public capital investment introduced in the NDP including:-

- the adoption of a long-term (i.e. 10 year) strategic approach to public capital investment;

- a sustained increase in public investment to meet infrastructural needs;

- the establishment of four new Funds to target urban and rural renewal, climate action and ‘disruptive technologies’; and

- the establishment of a new National Regeneration and Development Agency to help to drive growth and renewal in towns and cities across the country.

Further details on all these aspects of the NDP can be found in the Plan itself.

The NDP includes many new projects which were not contained in the previous 2015 Capital Plan, for example the M20 Cork to Limerick road, the New Hospital for Cork, BusConnects Programmes for Cork, Dublin and Galway and a major investment programme across the cultural institutions.

It is also very important to note that the NDP provides a coherent long-term funding framework for the delivery of the projects and programmes named in the Plan, including those previously identified in other sectoral strategies and policies but, in respect of which, funding for their delivery was not previously identified.  In the Public Investment Management Assessment carried out by the IMF, on my request, for Ireland last July, the IMF highlighted the existence of plans which were not joined up on a cross-sectoral basis or with the resources to implement as a weakness in Ireland's public management investment system.  In the NDP, therefore, Government have made a commitment of specific resources to deliver identified investment priorities explicitly knitted into the NPF objectives.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.