Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am very strongly aware of the need to increase capital investment. I know the Deputy understands these matters very well, and the choice we have is regarding how we do this in a way that does not cause the price of what we are looking to build to increase so we end up building projects at a higher cost than we should. We have been down that path before. To do this, it is important that we pace the increase of capital expenditure in a careful manner. With regard to what the Deputy said about Hansfield, at the end of last year we set up the local housing infrastructure activation fund there, and the main reason the fund was set up was to provide co-funding to local authorities to provide transport infrastructure and utilities to allow private development to occur. It would appear the fund should have been able to meet the need the Deputy has just spoken about. I will find out why it did not do so, because 3,000 homes is a huge number of homes in an area that would be well capable of sustaining them. I will respond to the Deputy on this matter after this step.

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