Powering on the NDP

PAYMENTS INTRODUCTION Minister Dick Roche

Powering on the National Development Plan

Liamy MacNally

People are elected to office, not power. For the next six months there will be a lot of talk about power rather than office. One will hear, ‘When we get into power’ so often that it will grate on the ear. Office is about assuming responsibility, as is power. A power that does not assume a deep sense of responsibility is an abuse. It is power for the sake of authority. That kind of power does not command respect because it makes unreasonable demands. Its demands are not based on the responsibility to ‘serve’, but rather on the limitations of the person in power. Such abuses of power limit the person in office rather than enhance their position.

NO CHANGE
In the 5th century BC when Heraclites delved into an understanding of change and coined ‘The only thing that is constant is change’, he had not bargained for Irish politics in the 20th and 21st century AD. The yokes of power in this great little country have rested on the shoulders of Fianna Fáil. The party can only be complimented for such an impressive record. To accuse the party would be to accuse the generations of electorates who voted them in.
It looks light the pattern will be repeated later this year as Bertie and the boys can do no wrong. Perhaps the sociologists or psychologists, or even the psychiatrists, might explain the penchant we have for choosing such people to govern us. We no sooner have them re-elected when we line up to take pot shots at their policies and decisions. The more ‘tabloid’ our society becomes the more tabloid our minds become. We reduce those we elected to govern us to fit into the tabloid minds, even if some of the politicians are like pipers playing us down Tabloid Avenue with its Page 3 mentality and sound-byte answers.          
 
PLAYING POWER GAMES
Some years ago the electorate was squeezed by the elected in a very cruel way. The Freedom of Information Act was butchered. It was made inaccessible to people by putting an exorbitant charge on the act of retrieving information for any request. 
Ask Michael Ring about charges he faced when he submitted a Freedom of Information request about the people who worked to update the Register of Electors. He was asked to pay €167! This is an aberration of the process of government, not that Mayo County Council employees can be really blamed because all they are doing is what they were told to do by central Government. 
And we accept it! It can only be that there is still too much money around. Money has a knack of dimming the senses to all notions of reality. Just look at how the theatre of local politics has been robbed since Minister Dick Roche introduced payments for councillors on local authorities.

THE DUBLIN DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Another example of the silly tactics of an over-powered Government is the recent launch of the National Development Plan. The fanfare, the posturing, the smiling and the posing are all required attributes on the day of the launch of the National Development Plan 2007-13.
For the record, Mayo is mentioned three times. It is included as the location for a wind energy development by Bord na Móna, a mention as part of the Mayo General Hospital and as part of the Western Investment Fund as administered by the Western Development Commission. 
This is the fourth National Development Plan, but the first that is nothing short of an Irish stew because it included so many ingredients. The NDP was supposed to be about the country’s declaration in terms of infrastructural projects that would see the light of day in a given period. Alas, that is no longer the case. This new plan is being used by the Government as a pre-election declaration of ‘who we are, where we came from and where we are going’. Unfortunately it is wrong on all counts. The ‘a lot done, much more to do’ mentality is running out of brain space. This NDP is a nothing short of a joke. It is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing!
Check the section on Knock Airport. It should be included as part of an Irish Times cryptic crossword! It does not say anything clearly.
The section on the Western Rail Corridor is laughable. It is nothing short of a reiteration of that daft declaration about the re-opening of the rail line that is included in that even dafter document, Transport 21. Somebody ought to bring the Minister for Transport up for air, sooner rather than later! Note, there is no queue for that job, unlike the queues he has created at every crossroads in Ireland, go bhfóire Dia orainn! All roads do not lead to Dublin, regardless of what the NDP might state. Attempts to define developments at gateway towns, as defined by the National Spatial Strategy, are as meaningful as asking for an ashtray on a Honda!      

THE ALTERNATIVE
What is the alternative? Whatever it is it needs to start raising its head above the parapet, otherwise we shall huff and puff and blow down the house of hope of any alternative. The last NDP target was €51 billion. It overspent by €12 billion. The reality is that spending on the BMW Region was €3.5 BILLION less than it should have been. We might snarl at that. Snarl even more when we realise that the BMW includes expenditure on the M1 in County Louth. And how did that happen? Because we allowed the Government to define the country in such a way. From an infrastructural perspective, Louth has nothing to do with Mayo, yet we allowed it. If one strips away the expenditure on projects outside the west, that is Connacht, then the picture is even bleaker. Republican Sinn Féin’s idea of regional ‘autonomy’ makes more sense daily – office and power to the people. And they are viewed as ‘headers’!