Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)

Yes, but on the other hand the Minister claims there is no appetite for Government debt through PPP projects. He has not taken an imaginative approach to dealing with each project in turn. As such, many capital projects have been shelved.

The Government has not shown little ambition in prioritising the fund for the capital programme. The PPP model has been set aside with little effort made to attract potential international investors with the prospect of investing in a recovering economy. The failure to put in place a credible funding mechanism to complement Exchequer funding has resulted in a complete gutting of the capital spend and all the impact that this will have with job losses.

Looking at the basic population statistics, one knows there is a need for capital investment. Ireland's population continues to grow rapidly with the 2011 census showing an increase of 341,000 people since 2006, an annual rise of 1.6%. Ireland is expected to have one of the strongest population growth rates in the EU over the next several years. While this will be a large long-term economic advantage for the country, it will undoubtedly place pressure on the State's infrastructure resources.

In his various statements, the Minister has made guarded compliments of the previous Administration for the significant investments it made in rail, road, water services and so forth. There is a clear need to continue this. Excess activity in the construction sector in the past is regularly sited as a primary contributor the country's economic crisis. While this is true, an often overlooked fact is that considerable construction industry expertise was built up which was capable of delivering major projects such as the interurban motorways, the Aviva Stadium, the criminal courts of justice and the National Convention Centre. The last tranche of motorways was built at €4.5 million per kilometre which compares very favourably with European norms. With reduced tender prices, there is an opportunity to achieve a greater volume of output. The scaled back capital programme is bad for both short-term and long-term economic growth. It will lead to a further drain of world-class expertise and skills from the State. These skills will unfortunately now be put to use in the UK, Europe, Canada and Australia.

The State has already committed considerable resources to several capital projects which have now been shelved by the Government. Up to €150 million has so far been contributed to the metro north project, €40 million to Thornton Hall prison, €35 million to the DART underground, €18 million to metro west, €4 million on extending the Luas to Lucan and €2.5 million on the M20. Given the degree of work already done on many of these essential infrastructure projects and their potential for sustaining jobs in the short, medium and long term, it is inexplicable that the Minister and the Government have not shown greater imagination in seeking funding for these projects.

The Minister indicated it is reasonable to expect that there will be investment in infrastructural projects. I appeal to him to do that on a project by project basis. It is my understanding that there seems to be an appetite for that, perhaps not directly but in the next year. Because of the crises enveloping the world there are not many other locations that do not have risk attached to them. The medium term view from the investment community is that there will be a desire to invest in capital projects that have their own revenue generating schemes. It beggars belief, therefore, that the Government has shelved these major infrastructural projects that have their own capacity to generate revenue and suggested that this NewERA fund, without the appropriate information accompanying it, will be the solution to the creation of jobs.

I do not buy the Government's stance that it is serious about creating jobs. We have not seen the effects of that. We heard about 105,000 and 120,000 jobs in the Minister's contribution. We heard all of that from Fine Gael in the run-in to the election. Thankfully, the Minister's colleague, the Minister for Finance, poured cold water on the NewERA proposal because he is a realist. He did not involve himself in the propaganda in advance of the election and he is owed a debt of gratitude for that.

We will have to work on a project by project basis to get people back to work. We must look to small enterprise and stimulating activity in the economy. This announcement does the opposite. It puts a damper on economic activity and infrastructural investment and acts as a disincentive to investment from outside this State.

See this speech in context