Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

To counteract the Minister's argument, Michael Taft has stated:

The Government proposes investment levels not seen since the stagnation years of the early 1980s. Indeed, the Government six-year programme will be the lowest of any six-year tranche at any time since 1970.

The long-term annual average level of public investment is 3.5 percent of GDP with peaks in the 1970s and in the run-up to the crash. To reach our long-term average by 2021 would mean an investment package of €41 billion, or a 50 percent increase on the Government’s package.

Let neither of us get lost in the figures and in what the economists say. I return to my question: I will ask the Minister once more. Would he agree that, given that, we should lean more on the investment side rather than tax cuts? As a Labour Party man I would like to think that he would definitely think that. I ask him to answer that question.

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