Mr. John McCarthy:

The Deputy is correct. Competitiveness goes beyond simply wages. There are lots of other issues as well, including the capacity constraints, for instance within the housing sector.

The increase in capital expenditure that has already been announced for 2018, including the additional funding for the Action Plan for Housing, is just shy of 17%, and there is an increase of nearly 15% in 2019. At the moment we are looking at capital spending going from approximately 4.5% or 4.6% this year up to over €7 billion on the basis of unchanged policies by 2021. That has of course to be done within a fiscal framework. There are fiscal rules that make sure we do not let debt and deficits get out of hand but the Government is prioritising capital expenditure within that envelope. I do not want to get into policy.