Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Each Department has its capital expenditure budget and its current expenditure budget. I must begin to get my head around what goes into capital. Should repairs and renewals be under the capital heading? From day one machinery has always been seen as capital expenditure.

If one must repair it and so forth, this is done to keep the machinery operating. It is, therefore, a little like a subhead of capital expenditure and might be better grouped as such. We referred to roads maintenance and so on.