Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

We will see in due course that residential construction will increase from 25,000 or 30,000 units per annum to 45,000 into the future, which is the sustainable level.

In regard to the statements by the chief executive officer of the Construction Industry Federation, I have just made the case, explained what the situation is and how it works. There will be €7.3 billion in public capital spend this year. We have allocated €6.6 billion for next year as things stand pre-budget. There will have to be some contribution made from the capital spend towards the correction in the public finances.

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