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

The summer economic statement, which presages the budget, provides for an increase in public spending next year of €3.4 billion. That is one of the largest increases in public spending in a very long time. Of that, we have already committed €2.5 billion. We have committed to a €1.5 billion increase in investment in public infrastructure, which includes housing, health care, schools, broadband and climate change mitigation measures. We have also pre-committed to increasing pay for our public servants, including doctors, teachers and nurses. We will see pay restoration continued during the next year. We have also set aside additional money for demographics, recognising that there will be more pensioners next year as well as more patients and students in our schools. We are also taking account of the fact that some of the improvements introduced in the course of this year, including subsidised childcare and increased welfare payments, will cost more in 2019 because of the full year effect. As such, the summer economic statement provides that next year we will increase public spending by €3.4 billion, which is a very large amount of money.

Health spending in Ireland is already at a record high. On a per capita basis, it is among the highest in the world. It has been running ahead of the international OECD average for 20 years now, including during the recession. If Sinn Féin does not understand that our problems in healthcare are about much more than funding, it has no solutions to offer Irish people or those patients who are suffering and waiting. The Sinn Féin policy is to spend money which is not available and would have to be borrowed. What we say in the summer economic statement is that we are aiming for a deficit next year. It is still a deficit and we will still borrow money next year. We are aiming for a deficit of 0.1% of GDP next year, which is close to but still not a balanced budget. The Sinn Féin policy is to borrow another billion or two next year. Now is not the time in the economic cycle to increase our debt. Now is the time for us to balance the books and pay down our debt because we cannot assume the economy will always grow this quickly or that unemployment will always be falling. The Sinn Féin policy is actually worse than the Fianna Fáil policy of the past. Fianna Fáil's policy was "When I have it, I spend it". At least it had it, whereas Sinn Féin is proposing to borrow it. Increasing borrowing and debt now might work for a year or two but after those two or three years are up, Sinn Féin will plunge us into a financial crisis yet again.

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