Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The short answer to the Deputy's question is "Yes". I would be very supportive of a scheme that would allow people who are currently unemployed to be taken on by local authorities to do outdoor work. I know the Minister for Social Protection and the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government have done some work on that already and certainly my Department stands ready and willing to assist in that. If the pilot programme is in Cork, I would be happy for that to be the case but the lead has to come from Minister, Deputy Hogan, who is responsible for local authorities, and the Minister, Deputy Burton, who is responsible for social protection. Certainly, my Department is willing and ready to assist in any scheme like that. It is a good idea but there are issues that would have to be addressed around employment rights and so on and they need to be taken into account.

The reality of the situation is that we probably now spend only about 60% of what is required to maintain the roads to the standard that we should maintain them. Taking the money spent by councils and by central Government together, it is only about 60% of what is required. What we have done, as a Government and as a society, is decided that we will prioritise pensions, public sector pay and benefits over infrastructure and that is starting to show. It is showing in our roads, our schools, the lack of primary care centres and the lack of child care facilities but it was not always that way. If we look back to the 1990s about 3% of the entire Government budget went on transport. During the boom period when we were building all the motorways, the percentage increased to about 5% but it has now decreased to around 2%. As a proportion of the national budget, we have never spent less on transport and it is starting to show. It is showing across our infrastructure in general because we as a society have decided that we will have pay, pension and welfare rates that are much higher than countries of a similar wealth. That is starting to show in our roads, schools and infrastructure. It is an area about which we as a society need to have a debate.

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