Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that. I am not familiar with the detail on the schools the Deputy referenced. I do not want to do them a disservice. However, no matter how much more money is available to the Government or how much it decides to spend, there will always be a higher demand than there is money available to meet that demand. That will always be the case. Anywhere any Minister goes, there is a demand and need for more schools and Garda stations to be built, and for more investment in our health services. By making additional money available to the Department of Education, which we have over the past two years, we are able to allow more school projects to move ahead. That happened last year and will happen again this year. I will continue to work with the Minister, Deputy Foley, to try to make enough funding available to ensure very important projects move ahead.

I emphasise what I said to the Deputy a number of times this evening: capital expenditure year after year after year has gone up and up and up. It has gone up exponentially versus where we were in 2017.

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