Dr. Róisín O'Sullivan:

Deputy Creed's point on the need for capital investment and infrastructure really underscores the need for a medium-term perspective on fiscal policy. If one looks at the stability programme update post-2016, there is no allowance for an increase in capital expenditure. It is done on a technical basis pending the capital review, but nonetheless it is not in there. If one thinks about the needs of those kinds of projects, the bypasses, bridges and so on and one looks at that in the medium term perspective, it should then inform one's decision about one's ability to cut the sustainable revenue streams to finance that investment. It is important to distinguish between the deficit, the difference between the revenue flows and expenditure and the size of the gross flows. To have a responsible fiscal policy and to have a manageable deficit does not mean that one cannot have government expenditure if that government expenditure is financed by sustainable revenue flows.