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

I differ from the Deputy on the point he has made regarding the value of the non-core expenditure framework. The reason for this is if we look at where we have been with non-core spending the reason it was allocated differently is we wanted to avoid the risk of the spending becoming permanent and being embedded in how we spend our country's money at a time in which the emergency that required the spending of that money had moderated.

The biggest items of non-core expenditure are either gone or reduced. I look back at the Covid pandemic, and the big economic tools we had to help our economy are gone. In fairness, not many in the House are calling for their restoration. Even if I look at where we were for this year with the energy credits, their value was reduced versus a year ago. I do take the Deputy's point that we need to look at ways in which we can have a framework for our spending that is appropriate to the fact that while many of the issues we hoped would be temporary have been, some of them may not have been. The Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, and I began progressing that by framing the stability programme update by making reference to a contingency reserve of €4.5 billion.

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