Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

We allowed an additional year, from 2014 to 2015, to reach our fiscal target of 3% debt to GDP ratio. We have begun the negotiations to ensure that any resources that might be leveraged from the sale of State assets can be used for productive purposes, which was implacably opposed by the troika in the beginning and signed off by the previous Administration that it could only be used to retire debt. In the second round of renegotiations, it was agreed with the troika that it would look on a case-by-case basis for reinvestment of any deleveraged funds from the sale of State assets to create the next generation of State jobs. To answer Deputy Ó Caoláin's second question about whether we are still in favour of using the State as a resource for job creation, the answer is "Yes". That is what we will do.

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