The most frequent issue I raise in this Chamber is the issue of infrastructure. While I welcome the infrastructure plan, and there is a lot to it and some excellent developments in it, particularly in terms of national infrastructure, what it fails to do and what we are not focusing on but should be focusing on is the social infrastructure throughout the country, especially in our towns and villages that are growing exponentially. When I speak about social infrastructure, I speak about the Garda stations. Maynooth, Celbridge and Kilcock all have part-time Garda stations. Celbridge has a population of 22,000 and it has a part-time Garda station. Maynooth, with a population of over 22,000 and an additional 17,000 students, has a part-time Garda station. There is no primary care centre for Leixlip. These are significant issues. In the context of schools, St. Patrick's National School in Celbridge is falling to bits. There are serious issues with funding for Stepping Stones Special School in Maynooth. The three school campus in Celbridge is still only at design stage 2a. This means that Celbridge Community School, St. Raphael's Special School and St. Patrick's National School are still waiting for their school building projects to progress. Salesian Secondary School in Celbridge still has waiting lists. Maynooth Post Primary School still has waiting lists. There are people still waiting to get into Maynooth Community College. Families are finding this particularly difficult, and we need to really address what is happening. While it is welcome that we are addressing large infrastructural plans, we need to be ensuring families feel secure in the context of education, health and safety in the communities in which they live. It is incumbent on us to deliver that. This infrastructure plan, as good as it is in focusing on national delivery, which is long needed, does not focus on the critical issues facing families here today. I am speaking specifically of families in Kildare North, but it extends to areas in Meath, Dublin and Wicklow as well. On the infrastructure plan, one matter to which I want to refer is the skills shortage and the major bottleneck relating to the national workforce strategy. We need to ensure that we have this strategy in place in order that we can, in turn, make sure we have the skills required to develop the roads, hospitals and other the key elements of infrastructure that we need. While the focus should rightly be on national infrastructure, as it is in this plan, which I welcome, we need to ensure that we have a social infrastructure plan that focuses on towns and villages and high-growth areas and delivers what families really deserve.

Sentiment score: 0.18