Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am sure we can agree that economic recovery and job creation are inextricably linked. The stability programme update published yesterday by the Department of Finance forecast that unemployment will remain stuck at 14% for the remainder of this year, falling to 13.3% next year and remaining over 12% through to the end of 2016. The Government has again downgraded its growth forecast for this year and the next number of years. The Taoiseach has generously given himself an "A" grade for job creation, and I acknowledge yesterday's very welcome news on the upgrade of the M11 and N7, as well as the jobs announcement this morning at Squarespace, which I know the Taoiseach attended. None of this takes from the fact that the Government is starving the economy of investment. I will tell the Taoiseach why this is so.

Since coming to office the Government has slashed the capital budget by approximately a quarter, and it plans to cut it further next year. On top of that, the Government is not even spending the money budgeted for capital expenditure. For example, last year almost €150 million was pencilled in for capital expenditure but it went unspent. For the first three months of this year, the Government's spend on capital projects is down 27% compared with the same period last year. The tendency has been to slam the brakes on capital spending, particularly early in the year, to make up for cost overruns in other areas of current spending.

The document published yesterday points out that investment in the economy is at historically low levels and does not compare favourably with other countries. In September 2011, the Government announced the establishment of a strategic investment fund to channel commercial investment from the National Pensions Reserve Fund towards productive investment in the Irish economy. Where is the strategic investment fund and when will it take effect? Unemployment is the biggest crisis this country faces, and the economy is crying out for investment. Nobody is suggesting that the more than €6 billion left in the National Pensions Reserve Fund should be spent aimlessly, but if there are viable commercial projects to help create jobs and position this economy for recovery, we should carry them out.

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