Professor Alan Barrett:

If one looks historically at Ireland relative to comparable countries, it is easy to make the case that current levels of capital investment are below what they ideally would be. We touched on this in some of the discussion earlier. There is the historic lesson here that in the 1980s we cut back quite dramatically on the public capital programme. When growth really came to Ireland in the 1990s, the emergence of the bottlenecks and all such difficulties was quick and then there was a period of time where we were playing catch-up. In general, a smoother approach to this is fairly critical. One need not cite a significant amount of evidence. Obviously, the housing issue is quite acute. We made the point on earlier questions that investment in housing is not only about housing as water and roads infrastructure goes with it. There is a collection of infrastructural needs that must interact to achieve it.

I am not so much afraid of making political points. I will happily make political points if there is clear evidence to back that up. The issue of whether Irish public services are good enough is a tricky one. However, on the capital side, one can draw the comparisons, look historically and make the case that we are below where we really should be.