Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I accept the Minister's point but the Government will have to borrow €1 billion less. The Estimates and the budget were prepared on the basis of the capacity the Government had to borrow. The Government should borrow that €1 billion because it will form part of what the Minister's colleague's friend, Jack O'Connor, has been saying. I listened with interest to him earlier. While he believes our capacity to borrow on the markets has improved, I am not sure the Government will be able to borrow to the extent that the Labour Party's friends in the unions seem to suggest. They mentioned €7 billion or €8 billion using a multiplier effect. Perhaps we will hear more detail from Mr. O'Connor and the Labour Party in the coming weeks about how that will work. However, I would support a targeted and well thought out stimulus programme within our overall budgetary framework. The deal the Government has done provides that and, therefore, the Minister must fight for his portion of that to deal with road maintenance. There are new projects that would be nice to start but let us try to maintain what we have in the interim. Let us take out the bottlenecks on some regional and local roads, which are creating significant blockages and leading to road fatalities. Accidents will accumulate as a result. I urge the Minister to continue to fight for his portion of the funds in that regard.

See this speech in context