The national development plan is a plan for continued State failure to provide the basic services that working-class people need. There are no big new ideas in it. It is doubling down on a failed model of relying on the private market to deliver. It never has and it never will. Since I joined the Committee of Public Accounts, it has struck me that in 99% of cases, the scandals people hear about regarding waste of public funds are really cases of private companies ripping off the State. Hospital consultants set up private companies to profit from insourcing in the same under-resourced public hospitals they are paid to work in as public servants. It is happening in loads of hospitals, not just St. James's; it is also happening in Tallaght where €5 million has been spent on insourcing in the past five years. It is well-connected contractors and legal and consultancy firms getting millions of euro annually in Government contracts to charge the State through the nose for things the State should be doing directly. A key part of the answer to our infrastructural deficit is a State construction company to deliver the investment and projects we need. It should not be too much to ask in 2026 that, when it rains heavily, we should not have sewage flowing into our parks. I have been raising this issue for years about Dodder Valley Park and Balrothery Weir. What happened yesterday was entirely predictable. Again, sewage came flowing out because we got a high amount of rainfall. For years we have been pursuing Irish Water to invest in this. It has not been doing it. It says it is doing it now and is at stage 4. It simply is not good enough. It should not be too much to ask for that not to happen in our parks.

Sentiment score: -0.13