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

It is in recognition of the fact it is an important qualification that I made the point. I understand what is going on in different sectors of our health service but, cumulatively, as I said, what we have seen is an increase of just over 10% compared with where we were a number of years ago. It is due to an understanding of the sectoral challenges that are faced, particularly within our health service, that we made an agreement with representatives of the nursing union in regard to the role of the student credit to try to address some of the issues we are facing in regard to the recruitment and retention of nurses. We have done that.

In regard to the specific points the Deputy put to me about capital spending, I have acknowledged the competing demands that exist. That is why I am reviewing the capital programme, despite the fact the programme is in existence less than two years. I know that the context within which the plan was first founded has now changed, and that is why I am doing this piece of work. Do I believe the fiscal rules are broken? No, I do not. Do I believe we should find ways of giving flexibility to capital expenditure?

The qualification for fiscal space, as the Deputy knows, already does that because it accrues capital expenditure in a different way to current expenditure when it occupies fiscal space. The Minister, Deputy Noonan, has said he wants to see whether further flexibility can be found on capital expenditure and we are doing work in that regard on housing to see if that can be done.