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

I agree with the Deputy on that. I believe one of the biggest contributions we can make, alongside having stable national finances, to making the economy more secure in the future is to better invest in public capital and public infrastructure. That is the reason I flagged before last year's budget a proposal to reduce the contribution to the rainy day fund from €1 billion to €500 million per year. I introduced that measure because it created additional resources to allow us to invest in public capital and infrastructure. Where the Deputy and I differ is that I believe the existence of a well funded rainy day fund sends out an important signal about our economy which will, in turn, allow us to borrow at sustainably low rates. In addition, if we get into exceptional difficulty, as we did in the recent past, we have something we can use beyond the normal automatic stabilisers. The Deputy and I differ on that point but where we agree is that investment in public capital is the best lever available to us to make the economy secure. That is why we are increasing capital investment next year by nearly a quarter compared with this year.