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

I will kick off there. I thank Deputy Canney. I entirely agree with his point that with so much funding being available through the Apple decision, it is imperative we make a decision regarding how we spend that money wisely. When Ireland experienced a gain such as this before, for example, the money that was made available for us in regional cohesion funding through our membership of the European Union, that money was spent very wisely for the long term and delivered benefits way ahead of what we could have hoped for or expected.

That is what I believe we need to do again in decision regarding the use of this money.

I agree with what the Minister, Deputy Chambers, said earlier, that the priorities we should have are in those areas of infrastructure that will really help with either building more homes and the long-term performance of Ireland. That is going to be a lot easier said than done because any State agency or Department that spends money already believes they should have access to this money and they should be spending it, and multiples of it. Making a decision to spend that money on a few, smaller number of priorities that can make a long-term difference is the right thing to do. If we do that and reduce the number of decisions, it gives us a better chance of being able to get good value for money overall because we will be making a smaller number of decisions on bigger projects.

The point was made that, by doing this, it will allow us to improve, for example, the use of zoned land. That is exactly what we could do. If we are making improvements in the area of water or the availability of energy, that in turn will allow us to make better use of zoned land and build more homes. The Government will be able to give an indication on this but we have an awful lot of work to do on this in the coming months.

I know western rail corridor is a long-standing interest of Deputy Canney and that there is a lot of support for it, but it is just an example of the kind of projects, of which there are many others, for which the case will be made to go ahead and build them. We need to make a wise decision on a particular number of things within our country. That is what the Government will aim to do in broad terms, and then we will have to make decisions to bring that to life in the years ahead.

On the point about aviation and Cork and Galway airports, all I would say is that while airports can win routes, ultimately it is the airlines that decide where they put the routes. In my experience of dealing with these matters a number of years ago, airlines want to go to an airport that is a hub with the rest of the world and is near a capital city, and that is a big factor. That being said, I know Shannon and Cork have been very successful at winning routes. They need to be supported to do that again.