Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To be honest, there is much creative use of funds going on. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, has announced a €2.5 billion stimulus fund made up of public private partnerships, which is an innovative way of using resources, and he is capitalising the flow of our national lottery. He has established an infrastructure fund within the pension reserve fund, between the NPRF and Enterprise Ireland. We have created €2.5 billion worth of funds for SMEs and NAMA has committed to €2 billion of investment in new activity. We are using the resources we have to leverage investment in ways that are innovative. That must be recognised. If these are topped up there would be €7 billion worth of innovative use of funds. That is what the Government is doing.

However, it cannot be ignored that we came into a situation where spending on health, education and all the good things was nearly 50% higher than revenue being received. That is not a sustainable base for having a traditional Keynesian expansionist policy. If we have to supplement the tax base with 50% extra in borrowing it is not sustainable. Given the crash that occurred the Government did not have that option, even if the troika had been willing to lend to us. We cannot continue to borrow so we must develop smarter ways of using the revenues and assets we have, including asset sales. We must be willing to sell the assets we built up in the past in order to make investments in assets we need for the future. That is part of it, along with being willing to admit the need for a revenue stream from water services in order to invest in a world class water system. Those are the sorts of smart ways of using-----