Harney's flight of fancy highlights dismal state of infrastructure

Last week's kafuffle over the flight of Tánaiste Ms Harney to Manorhamilton reveals a deep irony. Those in Government who have been using such forms of transport, from the Taoiseach down, are the same officials who routinely boast that the Republic is a leading destination for high-end multinational companies, with suitable infrastructure to support that role, writes Karlin Lillington

Yet such use of air transport, especially for the reasons given by various apologists (tight ministerial schedules, bad traffic, time lost, inconvenience), is nothing if not a tacit admission that our road system is so woefully inadequate that ministers feel even short distances must frequently be traversed by air.

Consequently, the taxpayer apparently must mitigate the chance of a public official becoming bogged down in traffic or delayed by the dire state of our roads and highways.

Yet at the same time, a Government that has been in office for years (setting a longevity record, as the papers told us last week) has not seen fit to do more than give us small segments of adequate highways - largely EU-funded at that - around a few key cities.

Move a few miles outside Dublin, Cork, Limerick or Galway and one is thrust back bumpily onto two-lane, pot-holed thoroughfares clogged with hauliers trying to meet their schedules, people trying to get to and from work and businesspeople trying to make a meeting in another town. No wonder ministers prefer to wing their way above this mess.

Some of those cities and towns are in the regions that would dearly love to attract investments and jobs. Yet when it takes five hours to drive a distance that in most Western countries would take a little over two, what multinational would not worry about moving outside the greater Dublin region?

The Tánaiste, for example, works extremely hard to promote inward investment. When she leads trade missions to various corners of the globe, she is always a polished advocate for Ireland Inc. But we are past the point at which we can expect potential investor companies to simply accept the State's word that we have proper basic infrastructure. In this area, we can no longer "dress mutton up as lamb", as one former state agency soul once told me.

For many businesses today, the thought of describing the nation's network of roads as an "infrastructure" at all brings mirthless laughter. At the very least, we need a grown-up, multi-lane roads system to connect the major cities in the State, and Belfast.

This will only be done when those in Government are brave enough to face mini-storms of local protest and give the National Roads Authority the power to actually create a national road system, rather than lots of little bitty local pieces that take, on average, six years to get through local planning challenges.

Of course, this means creating a reliable process for implementing roads projects so that local voices are heard and weighed. But a roads authority must then have the power to formulate plans and accomplish the project rather than have each segment held hostage to a multitude of small local interests, as we have seen happen again and again.

Far too many urgent national infrastructure projects founder on the fear of Dáil ministers and politicians that some group in their constituency will raise a stink over some element of a crucial Bill needed for a project.

The critical Communications Bill is an example of such short-sightedness. The provisions of the Bill were first revealed in September 2000.

At the time, Government felt the Bill would be implemented at the start of 2001. But the first version of the Bill was eventually shelved and rewritten, largely because the first Bill contained proposals on the installation of mobile phone masts.

Government feared the Bill would not make it through the Dáil as few politicians would go near the mast issue, an angry topic in the regions and one that threatens regional competitiveness. What jobs-rich company will move to an area without mobile coverage?

So here we are at the start of 2002 with only a slim chance that the as-yet unpublished Bill might make it through this Dáil before a general election.

Yet the Bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation for the technology and telecommunications industries and, therefore, to the wider economy.

The Bill would extend the single-person role of the Director of the Office of Telecommunications Regulation into a three-person committee, greatly strengthen the penalties that can be applied to telecommunications companies that do not comply with regulator rulings, and require that telecoms companies share resources.

The latter element relates directly to roads development and some of the congestion due to road works. It targets, in particular, telecoms companies that wish to dig up roads, and is designed to regularise the appeals mechanism for local authorities. The idea is to create a balance, where telecoms companies are required to pool resources so that roads are only dug up once. This provision, says the Government, would also prevent local authorities from taking frivolous appeals actions.

My own sense is that this is not enough - and is only a small gesture in the direction of creating a strong and trusted national roads authority.

That issue aside, the regulatory provisions of the Communications Bill are essential in order for the State to create a stable, productive environment for telecoms and business growth. The Bill has been streamlined for approval, after Minister for Public Enterprise Ms O'Rourke successfully lobbied Cabinet.

However, that merely means the Bill is lumped among many other pieces of legislation that the Dáil also wished to prioritise. Dáil time, especially in view of the coming Easter recess, is extremely tight and many believe the Bill has almost no chance of making it through.

Most of the State's tech and telecoms sector organisations have issued statements indicating their deep concern. This week, the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland's Digital Business Council added its voice. Its chairman, Iona co-founder Mr Annrai O'Toole, now chairman of Cape Clear Software, says: "If politicians and leaders cannot find a way to place this Bill on the agenda and give it the importance it deserves, the economy is going to be in a bad way."

The State is already falling behind on offering affordable broadband connectivity and flat-rate, always-on internet access, compromising small to medium-sized businesses in particular, he says. The Communications Bill is essential for developing badly needed high-speed internet connectivity, another area in which the State is walking backwards.

Perhaps such essential legislation would be hurried on its way if all ministers were henceforth deprived of air transport. They need to come back down to earth and struggle, like the rest of us, with the infrastructure they've failed to provide.