Mr. Seamus Coffey:

May I make a couple of brief comments about GNI*? Deputy Burton referred to the impact on different tax ratios. In Ireland we have subtracted income that we feel does not contribute to our ability to service debts. If other countries were to adopt the GNI* methodology, it would increase their incomes and reduce their debt ratios because the income we are subtracting in Ireland is added somewhere else. It is being earned by non-residents. We traditionally did this with the gap between GDP and GNP in the context of the repatriation of multinationals. That is no longer appropriate and additional things are being generated in Ireland that are not contributing to our ability to service debt. If other countries were to adopt GNI*, what we subtract here would be added on somewhere else so that the gap between Ireland and the UK or the US would probably get even larger.

Regarding infrastructure spend, as we pointed out at the start, between 2016 and 2021 public capital spending is set to almost double. Whatever restrictions are in place with the fiscal rules, it will go from €4.8 billion to almost €8 billion in the space of four or five years, which is quite a rapid increase. The resources there can be allocated to various areas - transport, housing, etc. - and one could have an awful lot of capital spending with that amount. The caution is that it is used in a cost-effective and beneficial manner.