Coalition to dangle a ?175bn vote-getter
TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern will dangle a ?175bn carrot before the voters tomorrow as part of a major re-election drive.
In a strategic bid to shore up marginal seats, Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats will pitch the new National Development Plan as the most ambitious and far-ranging building programme ever undertaken.
The coalition will also attempt to resurrect the mothballed plan to halt the sprawl of Dublin by announcing proposals to bankroll eight regional capitals.
After the opposition parties dominated the headlines in the opening weeks of election year, the Government will shift the focus firmly back to its agenda.
With polling day just months away, the government parties hope it will provide a major boost in the run-in to the general election.
In a publicity blitz, the seven-year plan, running from 2007 to 2013, will be launched with fanfare at Dublin Castle tomorrow by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
Ministers in attendance will be selling their individual sections of the plan, 'Transforming Ireland: A Better Quality Of Life For All', to the public over the following weeks.
The new NDP will be far bigger than any of its predecessors and will feature social projects as well as capital investment.
Alternatives to Dublin will be on a priority list for funding.
Countering criticism that too much transport investment is going into the Greater Dublin Area, the new NDP will outline proposals for regional development.
It will finally kickstart the National Spatial Strategy, launched over four years ago but gathering dust ever since.
The main thrust of the massive investment package from 2007-2013 will be focused on the so-called "gateway" cities and towns.
The eight "mini-Dublins" are a triangle formed by Athlone/Tullamore/Mullingar, Cork, Dundalk, Galway, Letterkenny, Limerick/Shannon, Sligo and Waterford.
Government sources indicated yesterday that investment in key infrastructure such as roads, water and sewage, would be concentrated on these gateways.
The aim is to provide an alternative to Dublin, where people can work and live with all of the facilities provided by the capital.
The plan will also outline provision for 50,000 new childcare places and 100,000 new social and affordable houses.
It will also include the Transport 21 programme, a ?34bn package targeting an integrated transport system for Dublin.
It includes seven new Luas projects, two Metro lines, Dart extensions, the upgrade of the Maynooth suburban rail line to Dart status, and an underground station at St Stephen's Green integrating all services.
And more than ?1bn is being spent on an underground link between Heuston and Connolly/Docklands.
The plan also includes new commuter rail services for Cork city and Galway city.
There will also be a new road route connecting Donegal, Galway, Limerick, Cork and Waterford. This road will be known as the Atlantic Corridor.
The plan will also include a second orbital motorway, to be built outside the M50 around Dublin. This motorway will run from Dundalk to Navan and on to Naas before sweeping back to Wicklow.
The Navan rail line is also being reopened, running via Clonsilla and Dunboyne.
The Western Rail Corridor, running from Sligo to Limerick and on to Cork, may never be fully realised. Instead there is a concentration on opening rail links to booming suburban towns such as Athenry.
In the health sector, dedicated public nursing homes units, the new hospital planned for the northeast of the country, radiotherapy centres, the new national children's hospital and mental health services are all expected to be included.
The development of schools and third-level colleges are also planned.
Fionnan Sheahan, Treacy Hogan and Aideen Sheehan
Sustaining Progress 'worthwhile but over budget'
THE Government won't give the school report on the last National Development Plan until the new plan is published.
The signs so far though are that the NDP running from 2000 to 2006 was worthwhile. But several projects ran well over budget.
The final tally on the numbers of projects completed and their final costs will be published tomorrow along with the new NDP for 2007 to 2013.
A report by Indecon consultants on the infrastructure element of the programme calculated the price of the national roads element had spiralled from ?6.8bn to ?16bn.
The mid-term review of the NDP found the plan was correct, but that changes were needed in terms of where money is allocated and how projects are evaluated and managed.
Flaws
This report by the ESRI, from three years ago, highlighted serious flaws in the management of major projects such as Luas and said radical measures were needed to control housing demand.
The Government will claim those lessons are now learned and factored into the new plan.
The most recent update on the NDP showed road investment in the Border-Midlands-Western (BMW) region remains seriously behind projections.
Only three-quarters of the spending which was allocated for new roads in the BMW region was spent by the end of 2005.
Over the same period, spending on road projects in counties in the south and east was over budget at 120pc.
Mothballed
The new NDP will tie in with the mothballed National Spatial Strategy - itself published with great aplomb over four years ago. The NSS was hailed as a 20-year planning framework for the entire country, aimed at getting a better balance of development and stopping the sprawl of Dublin.
It introduced the terms "gateways and hubs" into the lexicon to describe the cities and towns that would be specifically targeted for development.
Yet evidence of this preferential treatment for key areas has been thin on the ground ever since.
The plan became a farce when the decentralisation programme spread the 10,000 public sector jobs to be moved out of Dublin to 50 different locations, rather than targeting the gateways and hubs.
Tomorrow's new NDP is regarded as an attempt to kickstart that plan by specifically linking investment to the development of the cities and towns listed in the spatial plan.
Fionnan Sheahan
What the key buzzwords mean in NDP . . .
WHAT you can expect to hear a lot about when the National Development Plan is published:
* Infrastructure: the basic facilities needed to run the country and move the economy forward. Roads, bridges, rail lines, water, sewage, power and telecom lines, schools, hospitals and prisons all fall under the definition.
* Social Inclusion: making sure that the money being spent goes to the areas and to the people most in need, tackling disadvantage.
* Investment: spending money in the hope of getting a return for the economy.
* Spatial Strategy: the planning plan. The plan to develop and grow cites and big towns in the regions to help stop the sprawl of Dublin.
* Hubs and Gateways: comes from the spatial strategy. These are the cities and big towns that are supposed to counter the growth of the capital, along with the smaller towns that are supposed to link into these areas and develop.
