Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not agree with the Deputy's presentation because we have focused on growth. We had a twin-track approach to get the deficit down and control the debt - and the troika programme was up in lights for everybody - but, in parallel with that, the Government ran a programme to grow every sector of the economy. That is why I reduced VAT in the tourism industry from 13.5% and 9%; that is why we had The Gathering and that is why I abolished the travel tax this year. We have restored the industry now and, therefore, that is a growth strategy for tourism. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine has a programme in place under which volume in agrifood will increase by 40% between 2015 and 2020, principally because there has been a huge change in the Common Agricultural Policy with milk quotas no longer applying. We will be able to go for volume at market prices rather than being restricted by quota to sustain prices. There is a different model in this industry.

With regard to FDI, every time a foreign company invests here, that feeds the demand side of the economy. Intel said last week it has 5,500 people and it has put €7 billion into the plant over the past three or four years. This is low profile, demand side activity. However, in the context of investment by the Government, there is a supply side to the economy and we had to concentrate on that, first, because it is worth doing and we can get a great deal out of it to get the economy to grow that way and, second, because we did not have large amounts to invest in new deal projects. We did not have the resources to build great dams in the Mississippi basin or to follow a Roosevelt-type projection. That would not work for Ireland anyway. It worked for the US in the 1930s because it was a well enclosed economy. The multiplier in Ireland is probably less than 1%, which means that anything we put into construction leaks out of the economy so fast we do not get a multiplier effect. It is not that we are austerity freaks. We did what we had to do to correct the fiscal imbalances but we deliberately stimulated the economy sector by sector more through taxation and supply side initiatives than by demand side initiatives. If we had the resources, we would go down the demand route as well. We have arrangements in place through the European Investment Bank and PPPs. Bundles of schools and groups of health centres will be built.

It is wrong to accuse the Government of simply having one string to its bow when we have put so much work in, which has clearly been successful, to repair the damaged sectors of the economy and to get them growing again.