Spending cuts not proposed, says author

Infrastructure: The ESRI mid-term review of the National Development Plan did not propose cuts in spending on water, waste disposal, social housing and urban roads, the report's author Prof John FitzGerald said yesterday.

Commenting on press reports that the Minister for the Environment had dismissed aspects of the review, Prof FitzGerald said Mr Cullen "must have read the newspapers not the report".

While earlier drafts might have suggested spending cuts in some of these areas, Prof FitzGerald said the authors had "listened to the Department of Environment" as well as to others and had decided that the levels of financing should be maintained - but with key changes.

These included the passing on of all or some of the costs to the users of services. He said this was particularly the case for owners of rural holiday homes who should bear the full cost of connecting to infrastructure. There would be "get-out" clauses for farmers who lived on the farm full time and worked the land.

"Water, like roads costs money," he said. Infrastructure should be aggressively managed to reduce demand and so the need for investment, he said.

The level of demand for services is often dramatically affected by the imposition of a charge, and value for money in existing resources should be the overriding principle, said the professor. However, he warned about poor management and a belief that development-plan spending alone would be enough to solve problems.

He said the State should not invest further in broadband communications - except in the poorer, more remote regions - as this was a matter for the market.

The Irish Business and Employers' Confederation (IBEC) welcomed the report and said it strongly supports the ESRI's call for improved project management. However, it said hard choices are going to have to be made in prioritising projects that can be fast-tracked between now and 2006.

IBEC said it was its view that such priority projects should include infrastructure to tackle waste, development of energy capacity and improved road networks for interurban routes.

"Prioritising projects which deliver the most benefit coupled with better management and continued expenditure is the way forward," said IBEC's Mr Brendan Butler. "This approach will remove the infrastructural deficit, which has the potential to significantly damage future economic growth."