Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

In the national development plan review,we prioritised water, energy, transport, housing and health digitalisation, but we have also given headroom to other Departments for important social infrastructure. For example, it could be the Department of sport on sports capital and ensuring we have enough sporting infrastructure. We have the Department of children and disability working in the context of childcare facilities as well. A lot of that is done by the private sector but there is still headroom to do more in that area. Social infrastructure is important. It comes back to good planning and the work the local authorities do in the delivery of housing and that they are agreeing to plans and permissions which ultimately build better communities.

If you look at education, for example, education funding has gone from a baseline of €1 billion a year to €1.5 billion and it is €7.5 billion over the next five years. Obviously, building schools in the communities that have increased housing supply is essential to having that rounded coherent community that we want to see developed - the education budget is a good example of that - so that there is an ability to respond to the demographic demands. We particularly concentrate in areas where there is increased housing supply.