Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister's economic statement. I cast my mind to 11 February 2010 when I had to step on a aeroplane to go abroad because of the disastrous economic crash that year. That was just seven short years ago. If someone had said to me then that we would be debating a fiscal space of €1.5 billion and an unemployment rate that has reduced to 6.2%, I would have laughed at him or her. Thousands of us were stepping on to aeroplanes at the time and we felt there was no hope. We did not know when we would be able to return. We thought history would repeat itself and we would be another generation that would not get the opportunity to come back. The trickle of returning emigrants began in 2013. The turnaround was extremely quick. It was quicker than anyone envisaged, particularly myself. In 2010, the budget was cut by €4 billion. A number of budgets were introduced and the country was absolutely rudderless. People were on the streets wondering into which bank they would put their savings because they did not know whether they would go bust and what the future would hold. People who were considering emigration did not know where to go. They did not know whether they could obtain a visa, whether they could come back or when they would see their family again. All those pressures were put on people and that was the backdrop at the time.

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We have come through those challenges. People have made sacrifices for the betterment of the country. Now we need to drive forward. We need to strike a balance between providing for capital investment and paying down the debt. We do not want to overheat the economy. If too much inflation is generated and interest rates start to rise, the cost of living will come under pressure and our competitiveness will be challenged. We need to maintain our competitiveness to facilitate the private investment that is coming in all the time. Our economy is growing as a result of such investment. We need to put that back into services.

I welcome the Minister's statement on capital investment in roads, infrastructure, education and hospitals. Such investment is warranted and needed. I make no bones about saying that there has been under-investment as a result of the crash. We had to try to balance the books. Ireland developed its capital infrastructure in the 1980s and early 1990s, particularly with money from the EU. We have stalled on that now. Progress has moved on again. We need to catch up. I welcome the statements of the Taoiseach and the Minister in that regard.

There needs to be a focus on sectors such as construction, from which we have shied away in recent years. We need embrace construction as a pillar of the economy but not as the only pillar. This area of the economy needs to kick off again, thereby generating employment in the trades for electricians, carpenters and bricklayers. Houses need to be built. Additional employment is needed in these areas to bring the unemployment rate from its current level of 6.4% or 6.3% to 5% or 4.5%, at which point we will have reached full employment. We are striving to keep jobs coming and to give people employment. We need to make work pay. People need to be incentivised to do a day's work. They need to know that if they work harder, they will earn more. If people are earning more, they will be able to spend more and put more money back into the system. That needs to be warranted as well.

I welcome the summer economic statement. I would be cautious about spending too much and inflating the economy too much. Nobody has mentioned this possibility. We do not want to see a repeat of what happened in 2000 or 2001 when inflation started to rise. That is something we have to watch.

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