Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate and the Minister being present in the Chamber. He has given a strong overview of where he sees the capital programme over the next five years and how jobs, schools and health care will be key and central parts of it. This speech is not, however, connected to last week's announcement about the capital programme. There is an element of rhetoric to the Government's claim that job creation is to the fore of its agenda. If €1 million of capital spend supports 12 people in employment, the proposal to take €750 million, a considerable amount of money, out of the capital infrastructure spend will see direct job cuts of approximately 9,000, notwithstanding the removal of the stimulus effect such spending would have.

The Minister displayed an aggressive approach to assisting with finding other sources of funding. The programme refers to the capacity of developing a fund of €1 billion. In other parts of the programme, however, it is made clear public private partnerships, PPPs, will not be possible. On the one hand the Minister has created an expectation that he will be able leverage €250 million from the State pension fund to create €1 billion.

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