Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)

That is a good question. I know the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, will have plenty of ambition to front-load it. I know the ambition will be there to do so but there are two issues we will need to consider. I acknowledge the huge amount of work that my colleague, the Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, Deputy Jack Chambers, is doing on that at the moment. The first one is having the productive capacity within our economy to handle a very significant front-loading. I know at times that this argument can feel a little abstract because we all want to make things happen quickly. The level of employment is now so high here, however, that we have to consider that if we were to make a really significant front loading in the economy and spend a lot quickly, whether we would have the people available to turn it into work. We have to consider this very carefully. I have been constantly impressed by the ability of our economy to grow that capacity. It is one of the things we have probably underestimated. We have put additional money into the economy and our labour market has grown. We have seen our economy continue to expand. The level of unemployment is now so low, however, that it is a real issue for us to be aware of and it is a risk to manage.

Second, as always, I go back to the point I made about uncertainty. I would prefer to increase our spending ambitiously but sustainably over a number of years rather than creating a big spike only to then find out in a few years' time that we cannot sustain it. That would be a terrible situation to be in. We would argue that is not the return of boom and bust. We would argue that there has been a spike but we have still come down to a reasonable level. It would be a damaging scenario for our economy to confront.