Mr. Michael Tutty:

I will respond generally on investment. This is one of the weak areas in the new EU budgetary rules, namely, that everyone is to get to balance, whether for current expenditure or capital expenditure. There is no special provision for investment. If one states one can have an extra 1% or 2% as long as it is productive investment, it is difficult to define what that is. There are many items we call investment that do not really bring a return at all and many items we call current expenditure that do bring a return, for example, in the education area. I have sympathy with Deputy Boyd Barrett on the question of whether there should be more leeway for investment than is the case under the existing rules. Once we get the rules bedded down and everyone back towards a balanced budget, maybe we can start addressing that sort of issue.

On the housing side, I certainly will not get into whether the Government or others should be the investor. That, to some extent, is a political judgment as to whether one wants the State involved. With State involvement and through some of the State agencies, it can be done off the balance sheet in various ways through public private partnerships.