Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I echo the point that it is completely unacceptable that we have a document on the State's financial position given to Members at 10 p.m, and that we are expected to give a proper analysis of it with that notice. I register my protest in that regard.

Before I get into the substance of the stability programme, I point out that there is no mention whatsoever of the issue of water, yet we have pronouncements from the European Union this week which essentially imply that it would be reckless to get rid of the water charges regime and Irish Water because we have commitments in terms of water conservation and water quality. These sentiments were echoed by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, Deputy Eamon Ryan of the Green Party and Fine Gael. My God - the European Union, Fine Gael, the Green Party and the Labour Party have some neck in talking about water conservation. They were the ones who slashed the capital programme for water infrastructure. The reason we have sewage floating out to sea and the reason we have failed to deal with the chronic problem in water infrastructure is the troika and their puppets in the Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government and the subsequent Fine Gael-Labour Party Government slashed the capital programme. It was those of us who are opposing water charges and Irish Water who opposed these capital cuts.

The real test is going to be when we get water charges and Irish Water off the pitch and start to argue about how much money we need to fix the water infrastructure. I bet that yet again the Government - Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil - will be on the wrong side of the argument. The truth is that Irish Water's investment programme is pathetic. We need to increase it significantly. More generally, as alluded to, we need to significantly up the capital investment programme which has collapsed across the board and produced not just a crisis in water infrastructure but also the worst housing and homelessness crisis in the history of the State and a desperate deficit in the level of investment needed for things such as primary care services, hospitals and a range of other infrastructure.

In the stability update the capital investment programme is set to move from the current level of about €5 billion a year to only €6 billion by 2017. That is a marginal improvement. This represents a collapse of investment compared to what it was in 2008, when the figure was €8.6 billion. Even by 2017, according to the outlook presented, we will still be spending more than €2 billion less in areas such as water services, housing and other vital infrastructure than we were spending in 2008. In this regard, the elephant in the room is the leve of debt interest. That is the issue. We will still be chronically under-investing in vital infrastructure such as housing and water services, while simultaneously paying out €8 billion in interest this year and for years to come. Money has been sucked out of vital spending on infrastructure.

That brings me to the point about risks. The Government states we must be careful in dealing with the external risks which have been heightened - they most certainly are when one looks at the situation in China - as well as the internal risk of spending too much. No, the risk is not that we will spend too much. The risk is that we will spend too little, in terms of capital investment, in boosting domestic industry and enterprise and developing the domestic economy in a way that will insulate it from domestic shocks.

Most certainly, that investment should not be sourced from debt. On this, I agree. We do not want to inflate our debt and put our economy in hock to international bondholders. The best way to progress is to repudiate the private financial debt on which we are forking out €8 billion a year and increase capital investment and current expenditure by redistributing some of the wealth in our economy by making the corporations and the super rich pay their taxes. We should proceed not by debt financing but by redistribution of wealth.

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