Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Our investment in research and development is also bearing fruit, with an increase in the number of Enterprise Ireland-assisted companies involved in this area and an increase in the number of patents from the commercialisation of publicly funded research. All of these initiatives are aimed at providing real opportunities for those in need of work and allowing those who were forced to leave Ireland to come home.

This Government has overseen improved outcomes in education. There are more students at higher level and more are taking higher level maths. Literacy rates among our 15 year olds have improved and the number of PhDs awarded by Irish universities has increased. This reflects our belief that the quality of our education system is a key determinant of future living standards. In the last budget we announced 1,700 additional full-time education posts. In the lifetime of this Government, more than 150 new schools will have been built. It is extraordinary that we built more schools during the worst recession in our history than were built in the boom years. At under-graduate and post-graduate level we are providing higher education programmes and services for over 164,000 full-time students. We are also providing 270,000 places on further education and training programmes. We will continue to invest in education. We must embrace the skills revolution, adopting strategies to ensure continuous upskilling and development of our work force to allow our citizens to be at the forefront of new technology and the creation of high-value jobs. The potential of the Irish people is enormous and our aim is to help them to realise that potential.

Thanks to economic recovery, we are now in a position to increase investment in our people and our infrastructure. We will do this in a strategic way, ensuring maximum value for money, with a focus on future needs. The capital review undertaken by my Department will inform a new capital plan which will be published in June. This plan will take our capital funding horizon out to 2020 and identify priority areas for investment. Infrastructural constraints can act as a brake on growth, reducing the productive potential of our economy. We also need a proactive approach to dealing with climate change and its future impact. Investment is needed in parts of our school system, road network, public transport, social housing, broadband infrastructure and flood alleviation. Spending in these areas will increase our capacity for growth, our ability to respond to social needs and enhance our environment.

As I have already indicated, capital expenditure has fallen considerably since the peak. That was the correct thing to do at the time because we simply had not got the money. There is no point in investing to extend one’s house if one cannot pay the grocery bill. It is now time to invest again to meet our infrastructural needs and this will be reflected in the capital plan, particularly in the years beyond 2018.

We now have a considerably smaller, less expensive and more productive public service. Having served in Government for the past four years during this crisis I am proud of how those in the public service have responded to the additional workload and the productivity changes demanded of them. These changes and the reductions in pay have allowed us to minimise the effects of the crisis in essential areas such as health, education and social protection. Indeed, public service reform has allowed us to provide additional resources to front-line services, a process that I have called the reform dividend.

We have added more than 1,000 nurses since 2014. We recruited 300 gardaí last year. This year we will take in 250 more.

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