Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We can talk about where we are, about the fact that we are at the lowest level in Europe and about getting to the midpoint or the higher midpoint, but the Minister must recognise that our capital investment was €10 billion and fell to €4 billion. There was a massive withdrawal of investment here. That is why we have a housing crisis, why our roads are now under pressure, why our rail is under pressure, why we do not have adequate broadband, why our flood defences in our communities are flooding and people are being put out of their houses and so on. Next year the Government intends to spend €70 million on flood defences. By 2021 the figure will be €100 million. It is completely inadequate. I know the Minister must balance all the needs in the budget. He has heard my articulation of the argument. I do not believe there is a need for the type of net tax cuts he proposes but I genuinely believe, as politicians, we have a responsibility - not a responsibility to chase votes but to act in the best interests of our citizens. We know about, we will all talk about and we will all sympathise with the fact that there are 3,000 children going to bed tonight in emergency accommodation. We have within our gift to ramp up delivery of social housing by using the resources this State has made available to us as politicians to decide where they should go. The European Union's rules have allowed that for every tax cut, every euro that is cut in tax, the Government can spend four times that much this year on social housing. I plead to the Minister and beg him to consider, even at this late stage, increasing capital investment out of the fiscal space available in this year.

See this speech in context