The National Development Plan, 2007-2013, was unveiled with considerable fanfare in Dublin yesterday and has "general election" written all over it. A hugely ambitious investment programme, it addresses economic and social weaknesses along with potential strengths and opportunities and pushes all the right psychological buttons.
With an election less than six months away there is, apparently, something for everybody in the audience.
Having wasted billions in the last National Development Plan and with many projects still unfinished, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern assured voters that new oversight mechanisms would secure value for money on this occasion. Such reassurance carries little weight because the Government has already rejected the investment advice of its own experts. Rather than rear-load its investment programme and reduce it somewhat, as the ESRI recommended to ensure value and to minimise inflation, it has chosen to increase it significantly from the start.
The new plan covers areas not examined by the ESRI because of the inclusion of a number of other programmes. Social inclusion initiatives that were negotiated last year as part of a national agreement with the social partners now account for about half of the proposed €184 billion fund. Other schemes for air, road and rail improvements were published in Transport 21. However, linking the disparate projects and political initiatives within a larger framework is a useful exercise. And it may encourage the development of more joined-up thinking within Government departments.
Nobody needs to be told our transportation systems are inadequate. Commuters are living lives of quiet frustration and business is losing money. Much is made in the plan about a national spatial strategy and developing regional gateways to slow the growth of Dublin. But Government investment priorities practically guarantee this will not happen. With the exception of the so-called Atlantic Road Corridor and a few regional airports, all routes still lead to Dublin. And much of the planned investment will take place there. A special fund of €300 million for the gateway cities is a small nod in the right direction. In the last NDP, the State was divided into two regions to maximise EU structural funding. Commitments were given that the Border, Midlands and Western region would benefit disproportionately. It did not happen. While projects in the Dublin/East region exceeded their budgets, by 2006 spending on roads in the west was down €500 million on promised funding and there was an overall investment shortfall of nearly €4 billion. That must not happen in relation to the newly revived spatial strategy and the gateway cities.
A growth rate of four per cent for the next six years is expected to fund the next phase of investment and provide a better quality of life for everyone. It is a benign scenario. And, in the run-up to a general election, it is only natural that the Government should seek to extract political advantage from it.