Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach might go out to him some night. He will show the Taoiseach the clip.

On the Taoiseach's recent correspondence with the EU President, Mr. Juncker, on flexibility in the fiscal rules - rules that the Taoiseach helped negotiate and sold to the Irish people and on which we had a referendum - will he furnish to the committee a copy of the letter to Mr. Juncker and any response received from him on the flexibility the Taoiseach has been seeking? I put it to the Taoiseach that, while we have always disagreed about the fiscal rules, we pointed out from the start that this is the type of implication that would arise, which is that money that is available to us could not be spent on capital investment because of the fiscal rules.

There is a debate on Brexit and one of the arguments is that national governments blame Europe for all the bad things and take all the credit for the good things. Is this not such an example? If the Taoiseach did not make a choice, for example, to cut USC in next year's budget, the Government could spend approximately €1.3 billion in capital investment, yet he sends letters to Mr. Juncker saying we have a historically low level of capital investment and need flexibility in the fiscal rules. I support that, but the reality is that, even within the flexibility available at this point in time, the Taoiseach is taking decisions to cut taxes instead of investing in capital. The Taoiseach is giving the impression to people, particularly those who are homeless or on housing waiting lists, that it is Europe that is preventing us from building houses instead of the ideological position of his Government, which is to cut USC, not put money into housing and so on.