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

I am, but it is the reason the more significant increases in expenditure are back-weighted to 2025 and 2026. If we were to be spending €1 billion extra in capital next year I would have serious doubt about whether the capacity exists in our economy to turn that into additional homes and facilities for our economy and our society . The decision we have made to build up the additional capital over a three-year period is the right thing to do from a capacity constraint perspective. The second aspect will be challenging to do. Where at all possible, we will try to prioritise projects that either have planning permission or are being built and can be developed further for that additional capital. We do so in the expectation those projects that have planning permission or are ready to go will be the ones that will be best able to command the people to build the project. There is a real balance here. While we will face many calls to spend much more on capital than we are planning to in our capital budget of around €13 billion, as the other Minister said a moment ago, if we were to increase it significantly beyond that it would contribute to inflation in our economy. Big increases in capital expenditure could have a really big impact on our labour market and the heat within it and a big knock-on effect on inflation. It is a difficult argument to make that we should not spend more for fear of generating inflation, but we are at a point where that is real risk for us.