Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for his contribution. I will say a few words in the first instance and the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, will then make a contribution.

First, on the idea of a long-term fund, that is exactly how it would operate, the idea being that one would invest money in the fund and it would generate a return. It would depend then on one’s investment strategy and risk appetite, where and how it would be invested and so on. There will then be an annual income or revenue from that fund. While that will not fully meet or offset the costs of ageing and the costs we know are coming our way with respect to demographics, it can be of significant help. There will also be costs with respect to the transition to the digital economy of which we must be very conscious. That is essentially how it would work.

The longer one can allow the fund to build up and earn a return, the larger the return one will get every year. That will offset decisions which one would otherwise have to make. Future Governments will know as we do now the direction of travel of our demographics. We are in a good place now but these will change rapidly. We know of all of the projections about the extra costs so it would be negligent not to make provision for that now, knowing what is coming our way.

The Minister spoke a moment ago about our commitment to housing. Deputy Canney is right to point to the constraints and the bottlenecks that we will have to address. The Minister has made more resources available to An Bord Pleanála and we are now beginning to see decisions coming through the system.

We are also committed to a programme of major planning reform and the relevant Bill will proceed through the Oireachtas. I acknowledge that the committee has done significant work on it in pre-legislative scrutiny. The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, has brought forward amendments to public works contract side and the whole process of burden sharing which will help. The Minister, Deputy Harris, has done an enormous amount of work on apprenticeships. I believe we will hit approximately 9,000 new apprenticeships this year, which is very positive and badly needed. We have more work to do on funding to ensure that there is private capital and private sector funding.

Home Building Finance Ireland is doing a lot of work. We are looking at new products which can be brought forward there to ensure that more private capital can be provided. We have already made a multi-annual commitment to Uisce Éireann in respect of water and wastewater.

It will be a matter now for the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, to weigh up all of the different demands that will be made on the capital side but, looking at the budget for next year, it stands at over €13 billion. That is the starting point and it is a very sizeable budget, even in European terms.