Cost overruns, poor value for money and little progress, especially in the areas of road building, waste management and tourism are emerging as major features of the National Development Plan, a conference in the west is expected to be told today.
The conference, entitled The National Development Plan at Mid-term, will hear a range of speakers criticise progress so far in the State's €50 billion, seven-year investment programme.
The conference, which is being organised by the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland, comes just eight months before the National Development Plan is due for its official mid-term review. It also comes at a time when it has been revealed that spending in the State's BMW (Border, Midlands and Western) and Southern and Eastern regions has fallen strongly behind target.
The spending is slowest in the BMW region, where the need for infrastructural investment is greatest. The BMW Regional Programme reported spending of just €647 million at the end of October, or just 43 per cent of its three-year target to the end of 2002. The Southern and Eastern Region fared just a little better, seeing spending of slightly more than €1 billion in the 2½ years to the end of June. The region's Regional Programme budget is more than €5 billion over seven years.
The delay in drawing down funding is being blamed largely on the foot-and-mouth crisis, which hampered the Agriculture and Tourism measures; and the lack of progress with waste management, which was to receive heavy funding.
However, the directors of the regional assemblies are adamant that investment is not being lost and progress can be increased by the official mid-term review next year.
Mr Stephen Blair, director of the Southern and Eastern Region, insisted that "it is not a case that the National Development Plan isn't being delivered. In some cases State investment at this point is in excess of target." Mr Blair said spending on county roads was an example of this.
For the BMW region the director, Mr Gerry Finn, said the area had been hit badly by the foot-and-mouth scare and the European Commission had only cleared tourism funding last November. He, too, was confident that "the figures early in spring will show improvement".
At today's conference a number of issues which the mid-term review "must address" are to be outlined by the economist, Mr Jim O'Leary, of NUI Maynooth. Mr Jim Power, group chief economist with Friends First, is also expected to be critical of value for money and inflation in a number of areas, such as the national road-building programme, the waste-management programme and the cost versus benefit of other measures.
The conference is also due to be addressed by a number of high-ranking civil servants and business people.