NSS plan is already threatened by cutbacks

GOVERNMENT cutbacks will undermine its ambitious new plan to disburse growth to areas outside of Dublin, it was claimed last night.

Opposition parties and business leaders said the failure to provide funding for road and rail links will render the National Spatial Strategy meaningless.

The plan to develop regional centres over the next 20 years was launched by the government yesterday. It listed nine cities along with nine smaller regions for development. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern insisted the government had the will and the drive to implement the plan in full, but the business and employers group IBEC said by naming so many towns, the Government was stretching resources too far so there would be no real benefit from the plan.

Slamming the report, IBEC director of enterprise Brendan Butler said that by fudging the issue the government had created major confusion in its approach to balance regional development: “Given the current economic climate it is imperative that the funding is targeted on infrastructure that will have the greatest benefit.”

Fine Gael environment spokesman Bernard Allen said the government was claiming to be trying to develop towns while at the same time dismantling infrastructure: “The strategy has to be considered in the context of what has happened to the National Health Strategy, which within months of its launch is in tatters because of cutbacks. The greatest challenge for this strategy is to have it implemented.”

The Green Party’s environment spokesman Ciarán Cuffe said the strategy was a road builders’ charter and would speed up the closure of rail services: “It also fails to provide a rail link between the Border Midlands and Western Regions. It has fudge written all over it.”

Sinn Féin said the strategy will be unworkable, if the government proceeds with the policies signalled in the Estimates.

However, Environment Minister Martin Cullen said all promised infrastructure projects will be delivered upon and emphasised that it was a long-term plan: “We shouldn’t expect the strategy to change the world in two or three years. I am confident, however, that in 10 or 20 years we will look back on this and say that it worked.”

The strategy was not a investment document, it was a policy document and was a framework from within which investment can happen, Minister Cullen said. The spatial strategy would eventually span the lifetime of three National Development Plans.