John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is my second term on the Committee on Budgetary Oversight. I spent almost the entire period of the previous committee trying to persuade the Minister to put corporation tax aside and it was not done. The Minister for Finance put €4 billion aside yesterday or the day before. Different political hues make a difference politically. That is a political point and I am not inviting the witnesses to comment on that.

I am interested in what was said on infrastructure. We had representatives from the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, before the committee. I asked them specifically why we do not put some of that money into extending and expanding the DART underground, expanding the Metro down south into places such as my constituency, and expanding the Luas. All of this is planned but until after 2040. That is one question.

Both groups recognised in their reports the cost of ageing to the population and the implications for the health budget as a result of those costs. Around 2010, PwC in Australia did a big report on investment in wellness and how it was basically a virtuous cycle. We do not seem to have caught on to that yet in Ireland. If we invest more in wellness, we might not spend as much on health. What are the witnesses’ views on that as business representatives and business leaders?

The first question is the corporation tax spend on infrastructure projects and the second is on wellness.