Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

I will deal with Deputy Collins's point on the children's hospital first. Whatever Deputy Collins's view on the merits of the location, that is settled. The Government said it would carry out a review and we brought in an international panel to review it. We can review forever or we can do something and I believe it is time to do something. I disagree with the Deputy's point that the existing pattern of children's hospitals is enough. According to world best practice, we need a national tertiary children's centre for our children comparable to the best in the world and this is what we will have. We will fund it through some money from the capital programme and augment it from a different type of licensing regime. It happens that the national lottery licence expires at the end of this year and it is my intention to extend the An Post licence for one or one and a half years until we get a different licensing regime in place, which will probably be longer in duration and with a requirement for an upfront payment which could be applied to this important infrastructure. This is a novel and important way of dealing with it.

The future of the hospital in Crumlin is a matter the Deputy should speak to the Minister for Health about. I simply do not have the answer because I am dealing with the overall capital programme.

I enjoy my interactions with Deputy Boyd Barrett but we hold fundamentally different views on how to deal with the issues. Our fiscal path is working despite all the volatility and we are returning to growth at a level of approximately 1% this year and with projected growth of 1.6% next year. Next year we will project into a growth path that will be jobs rich and we will start creating jobs again and this is important. Growth based exclusively on exports which is not jobs rich is not enough.

The Deputy is right - we must strike a balance between what we take out of the economy without stifling growth yet we must live within our means. The notion that we have the resources for a stimulus such as that undertaken in the United States is simply fanciful. We do not have the resources and no one is giving us money to invest other than what we can garner ourselves. We have tried to be creative as we were with the jobs initiative earlier. People objected when we put a levy on pension funds to generate some money to give hope and confidence to the tourism sector, precisely the sector that Deputy Boyd Barrett instanced, and we are examining other innovative methods.

I wish to refer briefly to other mechanisms for funding I am open to examining, with an open mind, any funding mechanisms which will put vital infrastructure into this economy. That is why I referred to in my speech last week and again today to the importance of public private partnerships. They are not all dead ducks.

We are impaired as a sovereign nation and because of that some PPP projects are in difficulty. However, a number of investment funds now see Ireland as a recovering economy and a good place to invest. We need to give them the wherewithal to do that as long as it makes sense for the Irish taxpayer and creates value for money. I have asked my Department to be proactive on that.

As part of the development of the strategic investment fund the first tranche announced last week is €1 billion. It will leverage €350 million from the National Pensions Reserve Fund. It is being managed by an Australian management outfit which is confident it can leverage that into a billion euro fund. It is the first of many funds we want to create to invest in job creation endeavours in this economy and we will lay those plans out into the future.

Capital is mobile and can leave the economy readily. We found that out in the immediate aftermath of our economic difficulties when there was an enormous flight of capital. That is a reality of which the Government has been mindful.

The final point on value for money is a good point. The Green Party caused me some angst when it was on these benches. A minority party, comprising 3% of the Government, wanted to dictate local policy. Even if I do not like local democratic policy in a particular place, if that is the will of the people who are elected to make decisions it is up to the electorate to decide. Somebody at the centre should not be saying, "I know better." We need value for money.

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