Equitably sharing sustainable growth must be our aim

The context in which the investment priorities for this National Development Plan are being considered is radically different from that of 1993 when the last plan was prepared. The basic positive assumptions for the 2000-2006 period are for strong underlying growth of 5-6 per cent and a public finances framework which enables Ireland to easily meet its stability and growth pact obligations associated with European Monetary Union.

On the negative side there are the major unresolved problems of longterm unemployment, inequality and social exclusion and a huge deficit in both social and physical infrastructure which is a long-term consequence of underdevelopment. While Ireland is now close to EU average income per capita, it is many decades behind EU standards of public transport, public services and social infrastructure.

The 2000-2006 period, which is the time-frame for this plan, is an important transition phase; the final phase of Ireland being a major recipient of EU structural funds and the first phase of being relatively prosperous.

The income of the proposed six new member-countries from central and eastern Europe is only about a fifth of the EU average. So, as enlargement to the east proceeds, sooner rather than later, Ireland's rating in the EU incomes table will rise significantly.

This new context needs a new departure, tackled in an innovative and imaginative planning framework. The "poor mouth" approach of the past must be abandoned, requiring a major psychological readjustment by all involved with preparing this plan. Much of the public debate surrounding the Brussels negotiations this year suggests that this penny has not yet dropped in some quarters of political life.

In preparing the plan the focus must be on consolidating and building on economic and social progress to date. The goal must be self-sustaining development with the benefits of growth shared equitably across all sections of society and the full realisation of our potential to contribute to our own development and to the wider EU. By the year 2006, Ireland should basically be standing on its own feet in a highly competitive European social market economy, a functioning EMU and an enlarged Union.

With the reduction in structural funds for the 2000-2006 period, the need to set priorities is obvious. The four investment priorities which Congress has proposed to Government provide an integrated framework aimed at addressing the most pressing issues affecting the quality of life of people, particularly those who have not benefited from the current economic boom and, at the same time, reinforcing the building blocks on which our current success is based.

The plan should contain an investment programme for urban living, which accepts that Ireland has become an urban society and that there is now an urgent need to make urban societies function efficiently before they seize up and become a major obstacle to growth and social cohesion.

The traffic congestion and housing shortages being experienced in most urban areas represent the cumulative failure of central and local government over many years to come up with a viable investment plan for functioning cities and towns.

Apart from the obvious need for a major investment in urban public transport (both rail and bus), there is an urgent need for spatial planning based on an understanding of how cities and smaller urban centres actually work, and on the concept of functioning communities within urban areas. Cities and towns automatically generate deprivation if development is dictated by market forces without adequate planning and regulation.

The objective of this investment priority would be to make Irish cities and towns work better as economic and social entities; give them the capacity to lead economic growth; halt unfavourable development patterns and reinforce favourable ones; and eliminate other structural causes of social exclusion and long-term unemployment.

In this context the proposal for a separate sub-programme for social, cultural and recreational investment contained in the recent ESRI report, National Investment Priorities for the Period 2000-2006, is very welcome.

Another priority should be an investment programme for lifelong learning. Integrated planning must include the goals of upgrading skills in the workforce, improving the quality of basic education, broadening access to higher levels of education and additional measures and resources to assist early school-leavers, long-term unemployed people and other groups that have lost out in the existing system.

The objectives of this programme would be to maintain the employability of workers throughout their working lives; remove the obstacles to participation in education and training for disadvantaged groups, particularly the long-term unemployed, women and people with disabilities and address one of the root causes of social exclusion.

The plan should contain a separate programme for social inclusion to tackle disadvantage which is clearly focused on long-term unemployment, regenerating urban communities which have been disadvantaged by unemployment, lack of investment in economic and social infrastructure, crime and drugs and rural disadvantaged areas with poor economic and social infrastructure.

Social exclusion offers a good example of how and why an integrated planning approach is essential. Despite the recent rapid economic growth, large areas of all Irish cities and of many major towns are dogged by problems of social exclusion and long-term unemployment.

Measures under this programme would complement the investment measures already proposed in relation to urban living and lifelong learning.

FINALLY, it is clear that the plan must contain proposals to address the physical infrastructural deficits, including the obvious gaps in public transport, the need to upgrade our information, communications and telecommunications system and improving the environment infrastructure including our waste water treatment facilities, developing a national waste management system and a recycling infrastructure that will provide outlets for industrial, commercial and domestic recycling.

If a significant investment is to be made under these four headings, the costs are clearly beyond any co-financing arrangements which may be agreed under the structural funds for the 2000-2006 period. Therefore I see the National Development Plan as only the beginning of a prolonged period of investment which will also require a significant commitment of our own resources for the next decade. As the ESRI report points out: "If a project is worth undertaking with EU funding, it is equally worth undertaking with Irish taxpayers' funds".

Patricia O'Donovan is deputy general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions

Tomorrow: John Fitzgerald of the ESRI on the need for vision to take advantage of the opportunities offered