Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Broadly, as I said earlier, economic growth is a vital prerequisite to what we need to do in our communities and society, and I am careful not to see economic growth or profit maximisation as an end in itself. We must grow our economy to create resources to do good things in our society and to create jobs. That is my approach to the role of economic growth.

With regard to climate change and potential sanctions or fines in the future, one of the reasons I am introducing a five-year budgetary framework as opposed to what we did in the past, which was to look ahead for a couple of years, is to create greater clarity regarding issues and risks we will face in the future. The response from the Commission to our position on environmental change could well be one of them. I will certainly examine that. More broadly, I have accepted the vast majority of ideas or proposals that have come to me from the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment that I could afford in a given year. The climate change element of Project Ireland 2040 and the capital expenditure associated with it point to big increases in capital expenditure to deal with challenges related to climate change and the agenda laid out by the Minister.