Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

To summarise before the meeting concludes, the report states the budget is progressive and there were higher gains for those on lower incomes compared with those higher-income households. There were higher gains for households with disabilities compared with those without disabilities. It was gender neutral, with a 2% gain for males and females in terms of disposable income average. One-off payments played a role, but we would not have been able to make such one-off payments if the economy were not performing well or the public finances not protected. There must be scope for those payments to diminish in future years, however. That is against the backdrop of the global economy slowing down.

It is also against the backdrop of geopolitical an other issues which can impact on trade. Nonetheless, the Government has taken the decision that the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, had recommended - as indeed we all had collectively - a sovereign wealth fund. That now is in the form of the Ireland Fund and the low-carbon, nature and infrastructural funds. This is in addition to the other point about the increases in allocations as originally provided for from the windfall taxes to the tune of €2.25 billion over the next four years.

There is one point I would like to hone in on specifically. Dr. Doorley stated that, "Notwithstanding the normalising of activity domestically and the slowdown in international trade, the domestic Irish economy is currently operating at capacity, in particular in relation to employment intensive sectors like construction." Dr. Doorley is saying construction is at capacity at present notwithstanding the record levels of funding that have been applied to social housing and the wide range of financial assistance that is available to assist people to purchase their homes, for example, the first home scheme; the help-to-buy scheme; the waiving of development charges last year and again next year; the funding that is available to bring derelict and unoccupied properties into use via Croí Cónaithe; and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, grants on retrofitting. If one were to take some of them away, would we be at full capacity?