Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In terms of what is available to allocate in the budget, it is important to state most of what may appear as so-called fiscal space is already allocated. We have already announced that capital expenditure will increase by €1.5 billion next year. That means extra money for housing and health care, such as the children's hospital. The cost of that really falls into next year. There is to be further investment in transport. This is good expenditure but it is already committed. Also to be considered is the impact of increased public sector pay. There is a further pay increase for public servants in October. The full-year cost of that next year has to be borne in mind. This is good spending. It is extra money for teachers, nurses and gardaí but it does mean the money has to be taken out of the budget for next year. Also, there is the full-year cost of the increases in social welfare for jobseekers, lone parents, the disabled, carers and other groups who have seen a welfare increase in the past few weeks. The full-year cost of that has to come out of the allocation for next year also. Also to be considered are the demographic effects of an ageing population. There is to be an extra €200 million for pensions, and there is to be an additional health care cost. Taking into account the full-year cost of measures already announced and committed to, including the costs of demographics, pensions and health care, the figure amounts to well over €2.5 billion already. When one looks at the figures in that way, one sees that what is left to be allocated for new measures in the budget is quite small.

With regard to the capital plan for education, we are building more schools and providing more school places than ever before. In fact, we doubled the number of additional school places provided since 2010. Some 9,000 new school places were created in 2010. In 2017, we provided 18,000 additional school places. The capital budget of the Department of Education and Skills has increased by 56% since 2012. That is a major increase. It had been slashed by 40% between 2007 and 2010.

Prefabs are only ever a temporary solution. There are quite a few classes in prefabs in St. Mochta's in Clonsilla, which is in my constituency, but that is because a whole new school is being built. The children are in the prefab while the school is being rebuilt. Back in 2008, at the height of the so-called Celtic tiger, when there were many fewer children in school, there were 2,000 prefabs. Now, after a big-----

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