State urged to appoint minister for NDP

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern was urged yesterday to appoint a single minister to take overall responsibility for the implementation of the heavily under-funded and grossly delayed National Development Plan (NDP).

Opposition parties, reacting to concerns expressed by the Institution of Engineers of Ireland (IEI) on the troubled seven-year plan, blamed a lack of political leadership for the crisis.

Labour’s Joan Burton claimed: “All the recommendations made by the IEI will amount to little unless the Government shows some leadership on this issue.”

Labour said the worrying mid-term submission by the IEI should act as a wake-up call.

Fine Gael said the IEI concerns did not come as a major surprise. The hopelessly-mismanaged Dublin Port Tunnel was among the schemes, the party said, which demonstrated the Government’s inability to manage large-scale infrastructure projects.

The IEI, an influential body representing 21,000 members in the private and public sectors, claimed the seven-year plan, designed to overhaul public infrastructure and services to bolster Irish competitiveness globally, was seven years behind schedule.

Ms Burton said the IEI did an important public service by highlighting serious failures within the €51bn development plan.

“It is now clear that the whole plan is in crisis and unless there is a change of approach there is little chance of meeting the targets set in it,” she said.

“The main problem with the plan is the lack of political leadership. There is nobody in Government driving the plan and ministers appear happy to pass the buck to each other for failures and delays.”

The IEI warned the current downturn in the inflow of funds to the Exchequer involved a real risk that commencement of projects will be deferred yet again.

Fine Gael’s Richard Bruton said: “The Government has mismanaged the public finances and now with money blown, they are determined to make the public bear the cost for their mistakes. This is fundamentally wrong.”

The National Development Plan was due to be completed in three years time. However, the IEI said it was unlikely to be completed until 2013.

The engineers’ body has proposed a method of fast-tracking major projects should be established.

The IEI’s director general Paddy Purcell said a specialist one-stop shop planning body should be established, either separately or as a division of An Bord Pleanála, with responsibility for assessing planning applications for major infrastructure projects.