I take this opportunity to acknowledge the 60th anniversary of the death of Mike Quill, the great union leader in New York who worked in that city's subway system for many years. He always preached an anti-racist message. He was involved in the struggle for the country of his birth, fighting in the War of Independence, and the struggle for his fellow workers in New York. Everywhere we turn, we see infrastructure that is undersupplied, overloaded and crumbling. Our creaking infrastructure, a deepening housing crisis, a broken planning system and critical deficits in water and energy are the direct result of a decade and a half of Government inaction, outsourcing and short-termism. What is the Government's answer? It produces another announcement accompanied by a glossy document but without any real action. This is a do-nothing Government scrambling to fix the problems of its own making. In 2007, planning was deregulated by the then Government. In 2017, it was deregulated again with the introduction of the strategic housing development scheme, which slowed down planning, failed to increase supply and led to smaller and darker apartments. Now, once again, we have an action plan that bows to the interests of major developers rather than empowering local government and communities. It talks about a cultural shift but we need more than that. We need a transformation in our approach and a Government that is willing to step up and deliver for the people rather than being beholden to the corporate balance sheet. For too long, successive Governments have outsourced essential infrastructure to the private sector and left its delivery subject to the whims of market forces. We saw what happened in housing estates all over Kerry when their management was left in the hands of private companies. That approach did not work and the result is what we see today, namely, a seismic deficit in critical infrastructure. The Government's plan acknowledges that project timelines for essential infrastructure for energy, transport and water have doubled over the past two decades. Electricity substations now take eight and a half years to construct, a small wastewater plant takes up to ten years and a major road project up to 15 years, and the costs are way higher. What does this plan say to the people waiting for wastewater in Ballyduff, Duagh, Castlegregory and Fenit in County Kerry, where all there is, in essence, is a hole in the ground and an Imhoff tank within metres of blue flag beaches? Without that critical infrastructure, no more than one or two houses can be built. These inexcusable delays are slowing the delivery of homes, choking off renewable energy, pushing up bills and contributing to a lower quality of life. There is nothing in the plan about North-South infrastructure. We have areas of co-operation under the Good Friday Agreement but that is not enough. Cross-Border communities that rely on integrated road and rail networks, like the Belfast-Dublin economic corridor, require joint planning for road safety, port access and freight movement. The Government needs to catch up on that.

Sentiment score: -0.05