Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

We have dug ourselves out of a very big hole from the bottom point of the recession to where we are now in terms of getting back to economic growth, restoring employment and so on. However, we still have massive hangovers from what happened and the actions taken during that period. We still have a massive level of debt, which the Minister has said is very worrying. We also have a very big housing crisis, a big problem with our health services, infrastructural deficits in a number of areas and so on. There are some very big hangovers and now we are starting to see warning signs of things going against us. Brexit is a significant risk which is likely to negatively affect economic growth. Global trade is beginning to contract and we do not know where that will go. Climate change, as has been mentioned, poses a high risk because we have done extremely badly in terms of addressing it. We are way behind the curve in that regard. We also have an over-reliance on a small number of multinationals which the Minister rightly identifies as high risk. Does the Minister think that we are acting with the sort of urgency and radicalism required to address these problems, given that they are coming at us now when we are still suffering the very severe hangover from the recession? I do not see any ambition on climate change. We are way behind and we are still trying to expand sectors of the economy that are contributing to global warming, particularly agricultural exports. That does not make sense. We are talking about a carbon tax but we have not even done research on its potential impact.

The research I have seen on British Columbia shows it has no impact, setting aside the arguments about the fairness and so on, and that is the only thing the Minister is talking about. Where is the radical ambition to diversify the economy and shift things? Brexit, the slowing down of global trade and the overemphasis on multinationals highlight the need for us to diversify the economy to insulate ourselves. I do not see the ambition.

To follow up on our earlier discussion, we have talked about how one private company effectively has us over a barrel on broadband and what its cost could be. We have seen the overruns on the national children's hospital. Another serious danger in expenditure is our reliance on the private sector to deliver our housing output, particularly social housing. The cost of that is going to be extortionate. That sector also has us over a barrel. There is no reason to believe that the cost will do anything but escalate.