REVEALED: VARADKAR’S PLAN TO INVEST €3.7bn
■ LEO’S DREAM CABINET ■ HOW HE OUTFLANKED THE CORK MINISTER
LEO Varadkar, the expected victor of the Fine Gael leadership contest, will promise to build the Metro North and a motorway between Cork and Limerick as well as to upgrade roads to the north-west.
It comes as he offered his rival an olive branch of a guaranteed cabinet seat, the only minister to receive a golden ticket to a Leo-led government table.
In a new policy document seen by the Irish Mail on Sunday, the unbackable favourite will outline plans to build large-scale infrastructure projects with money borrowed at cheap rates. The infrastructure splurge could cost up to €3.7bn.
The Cork-to-Limerick motorway is expected to cost €850m and could be partly funded through tolls, Finance Minister Michael Noonan said in April, while improvements to the road network in the north-west are expected to cost around €400m, though it is not clear if this includes a motorway.
The shelved Metro North project linking Dublin Airport to the city centre with an underground rail line looks set to be resurrected under Mr Varadkar’s plan along with the Cork-to-Limerick (M20) motorway.
The idea of an underground railway in Dublin was first floated in 2001 by then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. But the project, estimated to cost €2.5bn, was suspended indefinitely in 2011 due to the economic downturn – by Mr Varadkar himself when he was Transport Minister – after €200m had already been spent.
The MoS can reveal that Mr Varadkar’s new 20-year national development plan, known as a ‘Capital Plan for a Changing Ireland’, envisages an increase in capital spending over the next seven years.
According to the policy document: ‘The new capital plan will allow us to bring forward long delayed projects like Dublin Metro, the M20 between Cork and Limerick, motorway access to the north-west and major investment in our healthcare and educational institutions.
‘It will also enable further investment to tackle our housing needs. Ireland’s infrastructure lags behind other European countries. This applies to housing, roads and public transport, broadband, healthcare, water, ICT, schools and further education. Advances are being made but we are not investing enough and are not planning far enough ahead. This investment will be coordinated within the new national planning framework.’
Mr Varadkar’s plan envisages borrowing at low rates by restoring the ‘golden rule’ that treats borrowing for investment in capital differently to day-to-day current spending.
Industry chiefs have previously called for low-cost borrowing to be invested in infrastructure. IBEC’s Danny McCoy said ‘corporate migration’ into Ireland ‘has given rise to huge corporate tax revenues. We should take these revenues and invest in our productive infrastructure, including things like the Atlantic motorway corridor.
‘The international markets will finance this at really low cost. Our constraints are influenced by our lack of ambition to use public-private partnerships [PPPs]. And those PPPs would be underpinned by the recent announcement by the European Investment Bank that they want to lend into Ireland on that basis,’ he added.
According to Mr Varadkar’s policy document, expected to be published this week: ‘We will amend our National Debt Target to 55 % (from 45%) of GDP, which is within existing [EU] rules, to allow greater capital investment. We will lead an effort in Europe to allow for greater spending on infrastructure.’
It comes as Mr Varadkar yesterday graciously offered Simon Coveney – almost certain to lose the race – a place in his cabinet. At a buoyant press conference in Dublin City Council’s office on Wood Quay, he refused to offer guarantees to any other minister. Even Frances Fitzgerald, who was a late convert to his campaign, was not given a guarantee that she would stay in her current role in Justice.
Mr Varadkar, who now has the vast majority of votes in the parliamentary party, should be elected Taoiseach by early June. He was asked whether, in the event of his victory, he would keep his opponent Simon Coveney in his cabinet.
‘He has enormous patience. I wish I had the patience that Simon Cov-
eney has, it’s one of his enormous strengths,’ said Mr Varadkar.
‘And certainly if I’m unsuccessful in this campaign I hope he will then allow me to be on his team and equally if he’s unsuccessful in this campaign and I’m elected I would hope he would be available to be on my team.’
Mr Coveney’s most high-profile supporter, Health Minister Simon Harris, was given no comparable guarantees. Mr Harris is understood to be worried that he will be sacked, as he and Mr Varadkar do not get on.
Speaking at the packed event, Mr Varadkar described rival candidate Mr Coveney as an ‘honourable’ and ‘diligent’ man. When asked about Mr Harris’s future he said: ‘As regards anyone else, no jobs have been promised and I haven’t sat down to decide who might or might not be in a future cabinet, my focus solely at this time has been on the campaign.’
He also said he retained confidence in Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan.
Mr Varadkar officially launched his candidacy yesterday and gained a number of other decisive endorsements. As Fine Gael parliamentary party members account for 65% of the vote in the overall contest, Mr Varadkar’s victory is approaching a mathematical certainty.