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

The Deputy refers to the potential return of what he calls austerity. Let me be clear that my plan for next week, as we conclude our position on the budget, is for continued day-to-day spending on public services to be maintained and that we will continue to spend more to ensure that our public services have the funds they need to hire teachers, to have the right number of nurses and to put in place the money our hospitals need to cope with the rising costs in respect of demographics. That will not change.

Regarding the supports Deputy Boyd Barrett outlined and the Keynesian approach to this, my point of view is that if we end up dealing with a no-deal Brexit, the economy will need an injection of demand and investment to help it deal with the effects that that would have on people's lives and working standards. We are trying to craft a set of supports that will allow families, businesses and farms to respond to that. I hope we do not have to use those supports because the political consequences of a no-deal setting, as Deputy Pearse Doherty noted, and the economic consequences are so serious. However, we need to be in a position that if it comes to that, businesses and citizens will have an understanding of what we will be able to do to respond.

See this speech in context