Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as an chur i láthair inniu. Bhí sé an-suimiúil. Maidir leis an chéad cheist atá agam, my first question, concerns the SPU. I noted in that regard that the Minister speaks about striving for a balanced budget in the medium term, but at the same time we very clearly have an economy that is unbalanced and facing huge amounts of uncertainty.

It seems to me that we could be balancing the budget before balancing the economy. If we do that, we will end up not balancing either. We have an emerging crisis in terms of credit provision. We face the prospect of an estimated €2.2 billion of our corporate tax revenue drying up. The stability programme update, SPU, states the Government will have no role in propping up firms whose business model is no longer viable. Unemployment is forecast to be higher than when we went into the crisis until 2025. That is not to mention the crises that existed before Covid-19, including the housing crisis and the low pay crisis.

I was glad to see the increase in capital investment but it seems that could come at the price of squeezing public services and social protection. As we can see from the SPU, our debt and deficits are projected to fall over the next five years. Given the major changes and challenges that this State is facing, what is the Minister's view on the proposal that we should be trying to balance the economy in the medium term rather than running the risk of trying to balance the budget and risk the prospect of doing neither?