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

There has been an increase in capital investment but the increase in capital investment is in line with the indications we gave for the national development plan a few years ago. The reason we make decisions years in advance to increase investment is to give our economy the ability to organise itself so that it is able to build and transform this higher level of capital spend into output, into new schools and new homes being built, and into the national broadband plan being expanded.

On the point the Deputy has made on our capital expenditure now having a lower share GNI* versus what we originally estimated, I am also receiving a great deal of advice from my Department and from institutions that spending any more money on capital investment beyond that which I have already allocated runs the risk of inflation and adding domestic inflation to the European and global inflation difficulty we are facing here in Ireland. That warning is also there.

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