Irish Examiner View: Let’s become intolerant of delay culture

The pace of change in this country is frustrating

Mon, 22 Feb, 2021 - 08:38

As Bertie Ahern's reconciliation, official or otherwise, with the party he once led seems to gather some modest momentum there will be renewed scrutiny of his legacy. Whether that reconciliation survives that scrutiny is subjective but one judgement he made many years ago still stands. He once echoed the frustrations of an exasperated society when he complained that it took far too long to get things done in this country. How right he was and, unfortunately, how right he still is.

Mr Ahern has particular authority on what might be described as Ireland's flagship for delays and missed deadlines, the as yet undelivered National Children's Hospital. He played a central role in the selection of the site and, coincidentally, his constituency was deemed the ideal location. The current prediction suggests that the hospital might open in time to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1993 proposal from the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland for a single, tertiary children’s hospital for Dublin. However, the pandemic and an ever-more fraught relationship between the contractor Bam and health authorities jeopardise even that three-decades timescale.

Mr Ahern may not have had a role in decisions around Cork city's much-hyped but still theoretical events centre but contractors Bam do. That project, even if the site is every bit as questionable as the children's hospital, is not as venerable as the Dublin project but it is beginning to look more like a moveable-feast promise than a project even though Cork City Council is an ardent supporter of its development.

It may be facetious to compare the development of links between Cork and Limerick with the search for the Northwest Passage but only just. The first recorded attempt to discover that sea route was made by John Cabot in 1497 but centuries passed before Norwegian Roald Amundsen navigated it in 1906. Discussions around the Limerick/Cork link may not be centuries old but they may predate the children's hospital initiative. Yet, the final — maybe — proposed route for the M20 and a rail connection between the cities may be known by September.

That urgency is echoed in plans, if they can be so described, to end the discharge of raw sewage into waterways by 35 towns and villages across the State. A recent Environmental Protection Agency report was highly critical of Irish Water’s admission that it had “no clear plan” or delivery dates to end that wilful vandalism. Resources may be an issue but then, in circumstances like these, resources reveal a society's priorities.

The pandemic has opened the Government to many criticisms around indecision or delayed decisions on how the virus might be contained. Some, just some, of those criticisms are justified but most are not. It is impossible, and maybe counterproductive to be emphatic in an ever-changing situation. Flux always limits options.

However, the same latitude cannot apply to infrastructural projects. It must be acknowledged too that delayed delivery is as much cultural as political. It is also facilitated by a planning system open to misuse though streamlining that process is fraught with danger too.