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

In the plans we have, the significant majority of resources are going into the increasing of expenditure. As the Minister, Deputy McGrath, outlined in his presentation, both current and capital expenditure, but especially capital expenditure, are due to increase significantly across the coming period.

With regard to taxation, the Deputy is the biggest tax cutter in the house. He wants to abolish the universal social charge, carbon tax and the local property tax. There is not a tax we debate that he does not want to abolish. What we are doing here is saying that over a period of time, we want to do what we can to try to protect workers in protecting their living standards and take home pay as it rises due to inflation and gradual wage increases, which we expect to see happen in the economy. That is what we are looking to do. It is a clear and targeted objective. It is an amount of money that is a minority of the resources allocated.

With regard to the €20 billion adjustment the Deputy referred to, where we significantly increased spending and where we are in intervention in our economy, we can do that because our public finances were in good condition and support from the European Central Bank but we cannot continue it indefinitely. That is why the plan we have here, over a number of years rather than abruptly or in a single goal, looks to gradually reduce that emergency expenditure. The Deputy is right in one way. We were able to make a huge intervention in our economy when it was needed but where he is wrong and where we differ is that I do not believe that can continue indefinitely.