Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

The €20 billion we have set aside for the new national development plan to reach in excess of €97 billion, building on the existing plan, consists of three separate funds. One is the Apple escrow, which we have received in the main, the AIB share sales and the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund. That is a big increase in capital over our existing baseline over the coming five years. We are in a position where we continue to run budgetary surpluses. In previous years, and even on an in-year basis, the Exchequer returns have been positive, and we are have been in surplus. However, we are at a point of significant economic risk domestically, and the global position is uncertain. In the programme for Government, we said that we will seek to protect capital in the context of any change to the global environment to build and give certainty to infrastructure delivery over the coming years. We have the capital set aside to do that. We have to be cognisant that if we allocate an additional €20 billion to the existing baseline, we will be at around 5% GNI* in the context of our overall capital spend, which is more than most European economies. We also have to be cognisant that it is not the amount being placed in the area of capital allocations but there is also the management of the labour market, the construction sector and how we manage that context of how we spend on capital in the coming number of years. That is important because labour market dynamics are an important piece of how we manage capital. The Deputy's question hypothesises a disruptive economic environment and an event in which we need to have some borrowing. We are not in that position right now. We need to have discipline on how we allocate it and ensure that it is focused on the growth enabling areas of infrastructure, which contribute to economic growth overall. We need to be cautious about our overall expenditure framework in the context of broader uncertainty.