The National Development Plan for the period 2000 to 2006, which is likely to be published next month, will give a clear indication of how the Government intends to build on current progress. Critically, it will also reveal how the Government intends to upgrade this State's public transport, its public services and its physical and social infrastructure; all of which remain underdeveloped when compared to other EU States.
The plan should also tell us whether the Government has the vision and the resolution to clear the accumulated transport, planning and other bottlenecks which inhibit economic progress. The context in which the latest plan is being framed could scarcely be more different from 1993, when the last plan was in preparation. At that time, the sluggish state of economic growth and the relatively poor state of the public finances meant that the focus was on maximising the "take" from Brussels.
Various schemes and projects were tailored in order to draw down the maximum level of EU supports; there was little or no debate about this State's long-term investment priorities. Something of this mindset continues to afflict our approach - in much changed circumstances - to the next National Development Plan. Much of the debate has focussed on the eligibility of this region or that for the maximum level of structural funds; there has been little political debate about planning and investment priorities for the next six years and beyond. In fairness, this may reflect the fact that there is agreement about key investment priorities. Both IBEC and ICTU, in their submissions to the Department of Finance, share a broadly similar vision. The urgent need to upgrade this State's creaking public transport system and to develop a proper road network is common. Across the political and business spectrum, there is wide agreement on other priorities including the need to upgrade sanitary and waste water treatment facilities and to expand telecommunications systems and educational support services.
In contrast with earlier national plans, the money to fund all of this will largely come, not from Brussels, but from our own resources. But, as the ESRI has pointed out in excellent report National Investment Priorities for the Period 2000-2006: "If a project is worth undertaking with EU funding, it is equally worth undertaking with Irish taxpayers' funds".
A key issue is whether the Government - or, perhaps more importantly, the Department of Finance - has the vision required to deliver the kind of extensive infrastructural investment now needed. Despite the extremely buoyant state of the public finances, it remains to be seen whether the Department can break free of its traditional conservatism. By most estimates, an investment of at least £50 billion is required to bring our physical infrastructure up to a level which other EU citizens have come to take for granted. It is to be hoped that the plan will indicate that the Government is ready to make this kind of bold investment in the future. Public/private partnerships are probably the most cost-effective and best means of ensuring that large-scale infrastructural developments are swiftly completed. For all that, the Government, even without the support of the private sector, should be ready to fund major infrastructural development in the long-term national economic interest.