Dáil debates
Tuesday, 1 April 2025
Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
2:30 am
Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source
This is a different potential economic upheaval than the previous one. It is of a different structure and a different nature. We have provided for the Future Ireland Fund and the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund, which are providing substantial funding. We will have €16 billion by the end of this year in the Future Ireland Fund. Whatever we do, we should try to maintain that as a protector of the future and the generations who will require access to pensions and social protection and continuing investment in infrastructure. We will be prioritising investment in infrastructure in terms of water, the grid, the digital transformation of health, public transport and so forth.
In addition to that, Europe wants to double down on the Single Market. I agree with President von der Leyen on this. Ireland has to play its role in that because the Single Market has been good for Ireland. The savings and investment union is now being seriously pushed by the EU. Ireland will co-operate constructively to arrive at a landing zone that benefits Ireland and benefits the wider European Union in respect of releasing savings to enable investment to take place in Europe to a far greater degree than is the case at the moment.
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