Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have an opportunity to make some points on the budget. As Fianna Fáil spokesperson on transport, tourism and sport, I will focus on those areas. Needless to say, if it was not for the Brexit pantomime and debacle, this budget would not have been facilitated by Fianna Fáil. I yearn for the day when the Government is out of office because the sentence which captures its performance is that the Cabinet sees itself as a group of non-executive directors. The Minister, Deputy Ross, is clearly on a lesser rate because he is only available a couple of days per month for work on behalf of the Government. While I know he was probably busy and had to attend to other things, he spoke earlier. I am still wondering what is in the transport, tourism and sport budget.

The reality is that based on the mid-year expenditure review, we expected €2.058 billion in capital expenditure and €756 million in current expenditure, but that has not materialised. We are getting €27 million in current expenditure and we are €150 million worse off in terms of capital expenditure, which will involve the lovely word of which the Government are kings, namely, "reprofiling" certain projects. The public wants to know what projects are being shafted in the year ahead. What public transport programmes which we were expecting and were, no doubt, announced with fanfare and press releases will not be funded?

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