Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am laying out what I believe is the Deputy's point of view. We have a different view on the matter. I do not believe we can increase taxes to fund the expenditure in the way the Deputy wants without having a negative effect on the lives of many of the people I represent. He is talking about significant increases in expenditure that would either break the fiscal rules, which will have another negative effect on us, or require taxation increases on which the Deputy would come into this House and criticise me.

The Deputy has couched all this in terms of fiscal rules and so on. I responded in that space to him, but in terms of where I differ from him further, even if we were in a situation where there were no fiscal rules, and for most of our membership of the eurozone, those rules were either not implemented or not well crafted, we still must live within the tax revenue we have for this year, the tax revenue we believe we are likely to have for the next few years, and what we can afford to borrow. Leaving aside the fiscal rules, that is the space within which we have to trade and invest.