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

We would have liked to have spent a lot of it helping businesses, for example, and the agricultural sector but in order to do so, we have to demonstrate that those businesses have lost their profits or have gone into the red solely as a consequence of Brexit. Given the increased trade that has occurred between Britain and Ireland, the performance of business and rising incomes, this did not fit the criteria. When money from one fund is not spent, it can be moved to another fund, and we have moved this money to another fund called the European recovery fund.

That cannot be spent on housing but it can be spent on things such as retrofit, and that is one of the things we have decided to divert the funding to. That will be of benefit to the construction industry because the same people carry out a lot of that work.

In regard to funding for infrastructure, the Deputy is absolutely right that for a prolonged period, when this country had no money, we were not able to invest adequately in infrastructure, and that is one of the things that is holding us back. The Deputy is right about that, but where are we now? There is a housing budget this year of €4.5 billion, the highest ever, and an infrastructure budget this year of something like €13 billion or €14 billion, the highest ever, higher than the European average, higher than that of many of our peers such as the Netherlands and Denmark. There is no lack of money for new housing or infrastructure. The constraints are different ones. They tend to be around planning, the availability of labour and the availability of materials, and they are the bottlenecks we are trying to fix.

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