Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

This plan as announced will do two things. It will lock this State into growth stagnation and will also condemn this State to many more years of very high levels of unemployment. The Minister's Government, and I have heard his arguments about fiscal rectitude and balancing the books, much like the previous one, fundamentally misunderstands the critical role of capital investment and stimulus in respect of economic recovery, not just in terms of getting people back to work but enhancing our competitiveness and making us match fit for foreign direct investment but also for indigenous enterprise.

Instead of the kind of ambitious, thought out investment programme we require what we have seen is what my colleague, Deputy Peadar Tóibín, accurately described when the Minister announced this programme as a debt for competitiveness swap. Vital infrastructure projects will not see the light of day and our economy will be measurably weakened. All of that will mean a higher cost to our citizens and to business and we will continue to see a truly depressed domestic sector. The Minister's commitments in terms of capital investment, much like the fiscal statement, resign it and us to critically high levels of unemployment for years to come.

I will go through some of the areas the Minister has identified as critical. Despite his trumpeting of the figure of €17 billion over a five year period next year's budget has been cut by €755 million down to a level of €3.9 billion. That will fall further in 2013 to €3.3 billion, €3.2 billion the following year and so on. As the Minister trumpets the figure of €17 billion it should not be lost on him, us or the general public that a substantial cutback is in play.

I turn to the matter of health. The Minister states that close to €2 billion will be invested in health capital spending from 2012 to 2016. The truth is that more than that needs to be done. The health capital spend for the next four years amounts to more than €1 billion less than the annual cost to the State of the Anglo Irish Bank debt. That is ironic, and indefensible.

The Minister's capital programme for health is short on detail. The commitments to fund the National Children's Hospital and to expand radiation oncology are welcome but there is very little detail of how and where-----

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