Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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On the same matter-----

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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On a procedural issue, I ask the Acting Chairman how we are going to deal with questions. Will I answer each question, or will they be grouped? I am anxious that there is real debate.

Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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I would like the Minister to answer the last question briefly, and then we might group them, so that everybody gets to ask his or her question.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Deputy McConalogue raised this first, followed by Deputies McHugh and McDonald. We have deferred major road projects - that is one of the decisions we made - and the A5 is one of these projects. The political commitment to the A5 remains. Before we made any announcement, I and the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport had a meeting with our Northern Ireland equivalents, the Minister for Finance and Personnel and the Minister for the Environment, to explain the situation. We explained that our commitment is ongoing. I have another bilateral meeting with the Minister, Sammy Wilson, in advance of the North-South Ministerial Council on Friday, and it will be formally discussed there. The Taoiseach has indicated the Government's commitment to build this road and assist in its building over time, but in truth, we have to cut our cloth according to our measure now. Bluntly, we do not have £400 million sterling to allocate to this project, and that is understood. The Taoiseach has said we would be prepared to make a contribution of the order of €25 million per annum in the latter stages of the project, in the two years 2014 and 2015, from the unallocated reserve, and that will be done.

Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The next speaker who indicated is Deputy Mick Wallace.

Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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Thank you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle - is that what you are called?

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Cathaoirleach.

Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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I hope there are more people in the Hungarian Parliament than there are here.

Does the Minister not think the metro north would have been a major positive investment for the State? It would have been a great move on the part of the Government for a number of reasons.

The Minister said that €1.6 million would be spent on water between now and 2016.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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It is €1.6 billion.

Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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Sorry, €1.6 billion. I hope the money will first be spent on fixing the pipes, given that 45% of treated water in Dublin city is lost through leakage. To fix those pipes would be labour-intensive and create a lot of employment. It would also be a good investment for the State. I hope the Government does not spend too much money on putting in water meters just to make the water saleable.

I realise the State will be short of money for a long time. It will not be able to build the New Ross bypass, at an envisaged €350 million, for the next 20 years. I am shocked the Government did not move more quickly to stop Wexford County Council from buying the land for something that we cannot afford to build. The county council talks about spending over €12 million on land for that project before Christmas, although we cannot actually build the bypass. We are well aware of the fact that there is a shortage of money. It is pure nonsense to spend €12 million on land now. We have better things to be doing with €12 million. This project cannot go ahead in the next 20 years. If we are going to spend any money on this, we should consider an inner relief bridge, which will do the job, and forget completely about the 14 kilometre bypass.

Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)
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The Minister made the point that his revised programme is based on the need to deal with the economic constraints we are facing. Even if I accept that logic, I cannot see why the Government has axed the metro north project. I would like the Minister to give us some more detail on this. The cutting of this project does not save billions. In fact, it is the only transport project that is ready to go; within a matter of weeks or a couple of months we could have hundreds of people employed on the enabling works. The cost to the State over the next five years is only about €700 million, which is not excessive given that it would put to work thousands of construction workers. This is true; the Minister's staff can advise him. It is the State's contribution. The project is a public private partnership with two operators still in the pipeline. How can the Minister justify this given the impact it would have on the northside of Dublin in terms of job creation, economic stimulus and so on? It seems absolutely bizarre.

In the same context, what revisions is the Minister making in light of the new economic projections? We can save him money out in the north county - money that could be spent on the metro north - by revisiting the greater Dublin strategic drainage study. The Minister has confirmed his Government's desire to spend €2.5 billion on a new monster sewage treatment plant for north County Dublin based on projections made a number of years ago for dealing with waste water up to 2040. It is the assertion of many residents and environmentalists in the area that cheaper alternatives could be found through the development of more localised plants. Why is the Government confirming that this project is to go ahead when it could save money and have a greater environmental impact by treating waste water on a more sustainable basis? We would prefer the Minister to revisit that and divert the moneys back to the metro north.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I was hoping we could broaden the debate. Anybody can come in here and advocate for projects. I can give the Deputies another list of projects they could add to that. It is great, and they can read about it in the local papers if they want to. We are all advocates for everything. I had hoped that we might move to a different kind of debate - a debate about economic sustainability and making real choices. There are people who are concerned about cuts on the current expenditure side. I have heard some loud voices over the last number of weeks arguing for deeper cuts in current expenditure - in social welfare, health and education - to lessen the cuts that must be made on the capital side. However, all the voices I have heard here are saying they want everything. People want to spend on every single project and cut back on none. Nobody has stood up and said that one particular project is the one we should-----

Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)
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Maybe we could get a few Anglo Irish Bank bondholders.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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We can have the mantra of Tommy Cooper economics: "Just like that." It will go away "just like that". Tell the bondholders to go away. Tell the ECB we do not need its money. The problem is that we do need its money. There is nobody else funding us. People are not fools; they want realistic debate. They will come to any committee to hear realistic debate. It is not an option, as the people of Greece and Portugal know, to tell the only people who are funding our gardaí, nurses and doctors to take a hike. That is not an option. Let us be realistic about making choices.

Let me deal with the specifics. We cannot afford the metro north in the medium term. We made choices in that regard. Of course it is a laudable project; we would love it. I would love to stand up, as some people in the past stood at these benches, and announced hundreds of millions here and hundreds of millions there. There was no end to what could be announced. However, we are living in different times. We have made strategic decisions to focus limited capital on jobs, schools and health care. For that reason, we are building 40 additional schools. Deputy McDonald says that is a drop in the ocean. We would love to build more, but we have not the wherewithal to do it, unless the Deputies would like us to cut deeper or tax more, because we cannot borrow more. These are the choices that people understand we are facing.

Specific points were made about the metro north. It is not affordable in the medium term, but it is on hold. People say we have spent a lot of money to date. Yes, we have. The previous Governments did, but we are not in a position to go ahead with it in the short term. Of the three big infrastructural projects - the metro north, the DART interconnector and the Luas line BXD - the Luas project, which will link the two Luas lines, will go ahead, but the metro north is not affordable, as we have said.

We are spending €1.6 billion on water. I agree entirely with the point made by Deputy Wallace. When I was Minister for the Environment I made a specific instruction on the matter. While engineers seek to build more dams and carry out more big projects, blocking the leaks is the priority. It is shocking and unacceptable that even after spending more than €1 billion we still have leakage from our mains of the order of 40%. I hope this will be the priority.

I will discuss local issues, including the New Ross bypass, with Deputy Wallace separately. I have made clear to my colleagues from the minute I went into my current Department that they should not spend money on projects that will not go ahead. I will examine specifically the land purchase issue to which Deputy Wallace referred and perhaps I will respond to him privately.

I have answered the issue raised by Deputy Daly on the metro north project. I do not have an answer on the specifics of the alternatives of various engineering solutions to deal with waste. That is an appropriate question to pursue with the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government.

Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Six Deputies have indicated that they have an interest in putting questions so please keep them as concise as possible. I call Deputy Joan Collins.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Minister is right. It is a question of choices. In our budget submission we will put forward a programme of asset and wealth taxes that could be utilised to pay for measures to put people back to work and to put jobs back on the highest point of the agenda again.

I have a particular question relating to the new children's hospital. Before the election, many Deputies on the other side of the House, including the Minister for Health, came to the people of Crumlin to discuss the children's hospital. They said that the new Mater site was not a good site, nor one they would support. We all seek the best for our children and to make the best resources available for them but this is a matter of part funding the construction of a new children's hospital. The licensing will be examined in future but we do not know what type of licence will be put out for the national lottery and we do not know what protection will be given to the State in this regard. On the radio on Sunday morning I heard an advocate of the children's hospital suggest that they have sorted out the traffic problems, that there will be signage from the Naas Road to the Mater site and that if there are any problems on the way to the hospital the emergency services will be able to respond and get people from any given spot to the hospital etc. The person concerned appealed for ordinary people to donate €100 to build wards and so on. There is a significant question mark over all of this. We need the best for our children and at present there are three hospitals in place which, to my mind, can deliver this. There has been significant investment in the Our Lady's Children's Hospital, Crumlin in recent times, including new wards, operation theatres etc.

The question of metro north should not be an either-or situation and I have no wish to pose it that way. However, I raise the issue because people do not see the rationale of the new Mater site or the proposal to put it there. What is the intention of the site at Our Lady's Children's Hospital, Crumlin if the Mater project goes ahead?

Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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I call Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett. Please be as concise and quick as possible.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I will be as concise as possible. I have a macro question and a micro question. I will not waste time on the debate we have held many times here except to ask the Minister about the larger macro picture. Notwithstanding previous differences we have had in debates on this issue, is there not some recognition on the part of the Government and euro leaders that in the wake of the significant downgrading of growth prospects in Europe we should start to raise our voices against the merits and sustainability of the austerity policy? Should we not be shouting from the rooftops that it is not working? It has been tried and it is not working. In fact, it is robbing us of the investment funds we need to get things moving again. I will not labour the point but it seems the evidence is piling up in that area.

The Minister asked where we could we get the money. Let us set aside the larger European questions of bondholders and so on. Does the Minister not agree that the collapse in private sector investment means that we should get hold of the capital available in society which is not being invested? To answer the Minister's question, does this not mean we should tax the small minority that have the capital and wealth but who are not investing it and who, frankly, in many cases got this wealth through questionable means? This vast wealth which has been built up in this country is distributed among the top 5%. Why will the Minister not consider wealth taxes to get from that small minority the investment funds that we could then put into developing infrastructure and strategic industry, instead of cutting the strategic investment area, a policy which will be so damaging for out economic future?

My last question relates to a parochial issue but it is symptomatic and it relates to what Deputy Daly said as well. The question is not simply parochial and it seems to me the Minister should examine this issue.

Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Please ask a question.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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This is a question. In some cases we are going ahead with capital projects that people do not want and the justification for which is questionable while in other areas there are projects that people want and the value of which is not disputed by most people but which are not proceeding. The waste treatment plant in north Dublin is one example. The local authority in my area is proposing to spend €35 million on a new administrative headquarters for the library which no one asked for and no one sought. Yet there are empty buildings in public ownership which could be used for the same purpose but the local authority will not give one third of that money to develop the tourist infrastructure on the seafront, such as Dún Laoghaire baths, which people have been crying out for and which could attract tourists to the area or to the Carlisle Pier. Will the Minister examine seriously such matters because it is a waste of money?

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I will deal with Deputy Collins's point on the children's hospital first. Whatever Deputy Collins's view on the merits of the location, that is settled. The Government said it would carry out a review and we brought in an international panel to review it. We can review forever or we can do something and I believe it is time to do something. I disagree with the Deputy's point that the existing pattern of children's hospitals is enough. According to world best practice, we need a national tertiary children's centre for our children comparable to the best in the world and this is what we will have. We will fund it through some money from the capital programme and augment it from a different type of licensing regime. It happens that the national lottery licence expires at the end of this year and it is my intention to extend the An Post licence for one or one and a half years until we get a different licensing regime in place, which will probably be longer in duration and with a requirement for an upfront payment which could be applied to this important infrastructure. This is a novel and important way of dealing with it.

The future of the hospital in Crumlin is a matter the Deputy should speak to the Minister for Health about. I simply do not have the answer because I am dealing with the overall capital programme.

I enjoy my interactions with Deputy Boyd Barrett but we hold fundamentally different views on how to deal with the issues. Our fiscal path is working despite all the volatility and we are returning to growth at a level of approximately 1% this year and with projected growth of 1.6% next year. Next year we will project into a growth path that will be jobs rich and we will start creating jobs again and this is important. Growth based exclusively on exports which is not jobs rich is not enough.

The Deputy is right - we must strike a balance between what we take out of the economy without stifling growth yet we must live within our means. The notion that we have the resources for a stimulus such as that undertaken in the United States is simply fanciful. We do not have the resources and no one is giving us money to invest other than what we can garner ourselves. We have tried to be creative as we were with the jobs initiative earlier. People objected when we put a levy on pension funds to generate some money to give hope and confidence to the tourism sector, precisely the sector that Deputy Boyd Barrett instanced, and we are examining other innovative methods.

I wish to refer briefly to other mechanisms for funding I am open to examining, with an open mind, any funding mechanisms which will put vital infrastructure into this economy. That is why I referred to in my speech last week and again today to the importance of public private partnerships. They are not all dead ducks.

We are impaired as a sovereign nation and because of that some PPP projects are in difficulty. However, a number of investment funds now see Ireland as a recovering economy and a good place to invest. We need to give them the wherewithal to do that as long as it makes sense for the Irish taxpayer and creates value for money. I have asked my Department to be proactive on that.

As part of the development of the strategic investment fund the first tranche announced last week is €1 billion. It will leverage €350 million from the National Pensions Reserve Fund. It is being managed by an Australian management outfit which is confident it can leverage that into a billion euro fund. It is the first of many funds we want to create to invest in job creation endeavours in this economy and we will lay those plans out into the future.

Capital is mobile and can leave the economy readily. We found that out in the immediate aftermath of our economic difficulties when there was an enormous flight of capital. That is a reality of which the Government has been mindful.

The final point on value for money is a good point. The Green Party caused me some angst when it was on these benches. A minority party, comprising 3% of the Government, wanted to dictate local policy. Even if I do not like local democratic policy in a particular place, if that is the will of the people who are elected to make decisions it is up to the electorate to decide. Somebody at the centre should not be saying, "I know better." We need value for money.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Minister should talk to them.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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It is very important.

In general terms all Government Departments will have a much more rigorous value for money audit system in place. I look forward to coming before the Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service and the Committee of Public Accounts. I have written to the chairmen of both committees this week about the public service reform programme. I am interested in laying out how we can have better value for money and more accountability and transparency in how we make decisions.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister said he has no options but he does. Instead of cutting €750 million from the capital fund he could keep it as it is and make savings in other areas. Sinn Féin produced a document which makes a similar type of adjustment, reduces the deficit to GDP ratio and is not contingent on bondholders or the policies we advocate on the banks. The Minister could implement these policies tomorrow morning but has decided to follow the same track as Fianna Fáil.

It cut capital spending over three years by approximately 50%. The amount spent was reduced from €9 billion to just over €4 billion. The Government is planning to take out 25% over a short period of time. Does the Minister acknowledge that, based on estimates from the Department of Finance, a cut of €750,000 in capital spending will result in-----

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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The figure is €750 million.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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-----the loss of some 7,500 jobs?

The Minister referred to the jobs plan last June. The Government injected an additional €32 million in capital spending and dressed it up with other measures as a jobs plan. The Minister must acknowledge it is an anti-jobs plan given that 20 times the amount of capital spending is being sucked out than was put in in June.

The A5 is not a parochial issue. I am very proud of being from Donegal and I challenge the Minister to examine the investment in public and private infrastructure made in Donegal over the past decade. Transport 21 was flawed and I said so at the time because it the north west to the very tail end of the project. When things went wrong we were left with absolutely nothing.

Deputy McHugh referred to the lack of rail services. Donegal is one of three counties which does not have a rail service. We did not receive the same type of investment in the past. The issue is not just a road to the north-west end of Donegal. Rather, it is about creating a competitive region. An area with the highest level of deprivation and huge structural unemployment problems needs to have a dual carriageway. It would lift the competitiveness of the region and reduce employers' transport costs.

The Minister mentioned the project is being deferred but gave a political commitment that it will be fulfilled at some time in the future. He also gave a commitment that a sum of €25 million will be injected in 2014 and 2015, a figure which is too small. Over the next 48 hours the Minister, along with the Taoiseach and others such as the Deputy First Minister, will be centrally involved in getting the project back on track. A unilateral decision was taken by the Government which has put the project at risk but it can be brought back on track.

Can the Minister give me a commitment as to when he envisages the €350 million required for the project from the State will be allocated? Does he acknowledge this is not just a commitment from the Dáil but is part of an international agreement, the St. Andrews agreement? I was centrally involved in it, in terms of the peace dividend. I could read out the letter from the Taoiseach in which he committed to the project.

I want to hear the political commitment to the project and start the money will be extended in 2013 and 2014, as the Minister said. I would like to hear that additional money to the €25 million promised will be allocated. When will the entire amount be allocated? We on this side of the Border cannot plan for a major infrastructural project at a cost of approximately €1 billion where three contractors have already been appointed if we did not know from where and when 40% of the funding was to come.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
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I commend the Minister and his officials on putting together a multi-year plan. It is very useful. I read through the document in some detail and there are some great ideas in it.

My concern with the plan is that there is no detail which allows me, as a Member of Parliament, to understand why particular things have been allocated. The Minister picked four pillars and there is reference to €200 million and €1 billion. The total amount is €17 billion over the term. However, there is no cost benefit analysis or decision criteria. I cannot find any reference to the projected number of jobs and there is a fairly thin section on that.

I welcome the focus on labour-intensive work, which is exactly right. It is impossible for me to read the document and decide whether it is a good idea because it is essentially a list of ways to spend money. It reminds me of the Fianna Fáil smart economy document which was complete nonsense and comprised a list of vanity projects and a waste of money. There was no strategic thinking. There is strategic thinking in this document but it is missing any details which would allow me, other members of the Opposition or economic think tanks to get under its skin and understand why the Government has made particular decisions and decided certain things should not happen.

The nicely produced document looks like a fait accompli by the Minister and his officials, and he is presenting it to the Parliament and people as what is going to happen. We will discuss this issue in Parliament next week and potentially the following week. Will the Minister immediately release the detail behind these decisions, such as cost benefit analyses, decision criteria and things which were considered and not included, in order that we can have a well-informed debate? Is this a fait accompli? Are we discussing this in terms of input to the plan or is the Minister telling us what is going to happen while we provide general reactions to that?

Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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I remind the House there are two more speakers and there are 12 minutes remaining.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I will be as brief as I can. I am interested in considering and will cost any proposal from the other side of the House. We will give Members the facility to do that - they may already have been invited to do so - in a Chinese wall way, whereby proposals may be costed before they are submitted on the floor of the House.

In terms of the capital spend, we are charged with making political decisions in terms of what is affordable within the total volume of expenditure. That is what Government does. We must address our enormous deficit and return to affordable patterns of expenditure. The projected deficit this year will be of the order of 10.3% and our target for next year is 8.6%. By international standards, that amounts to an extraordinarily high level of borrowing to fund the Exchequer. In addition, we have an overhang of crippling private banking debt which was imposed on us by the previous Government. We have worked might and main to limit that as best we can, and have already achieved reductions in the applicable interest rates. The Taoiseach is in Germany today putting forward our case in this regard. We are working on ideas all the time to reduce the quantum of debt on the State so that we can restore equilibrium and return to making rational decisions for ourselves without being overseen by others. That is the general approach.

I would love to be able to say that we could proceed with the A5 project, but the reality is that I do not have the necessary STG£400 million to match the contribution of the Northern Ireland authorities. Going ahead with that project would mean having to abandon other critical infrastructural projects elsewhere on the island. We must be very careful in all of the choices we make. Other projects which were expected to proceed, such as the completion of the M11 to my home constituency, will not happen within the timeframe that was originally envisaged. The south east will be as deprived as the north west in that sense.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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Is there a rail service in the south east?

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I am pleased to confirm there is.

I am a great advocate of regionalism. I support the notion that we must ensure there are access points into the regions. I met with Northern Ireland's finance Minister, Mr. Sammy Wilson, to discuss the matter in advance of our announcement on the A5 project. We will have a bilateral meeting on Friday in advance of the full North-South Ministerial Council meeting in Armagh. Dialogue is ongoing in that regard. There is an understanding that this may be done on a phased basis and that some bottlenecks are more critical than others. To clarify, I stated incorrectly that the €25 million allocation is for 2014 and 2015; in fact, it is for 2015 and 2016. I wish it could be more and that we had the wherewithal to proceed with that project and with others, including metro north. However, the funding is not available within the envelope with which I have been charged with crafting an expenditure pattern on the capital side.

Deputy Donnelly asked about cost benefit analyses and whether the plan that has been announced is a fait accompli. There is a rationale behind the decisions we have made and every single project has been subjected to voluminous analysis. I cannot provide all of that information to the Deputy because it is a matter for each line Department. It is certainly feasible that a committee of the House might choose to analyse the projects that have been frontloaded and deferred in specific Departments and perhaps come up with an argument against the choices the Government has made. I will send the Deputy a note on the principles underlying those decisions.

The plan is not a fait accompli, but it represents the Government's decision in terms of the envelope of expenditure. To put it bluntly, our economic situation and that of our European partners is changing so rapidly that nobody would be foolish enough to say with certainty that a five-year plan will be implemented without change. We may well amend some of the details of the plan, hopefully to add more to it in the mid-term review rather than having to finish it earlier and cancel certain initiatives.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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I understand the Government's decision is to commit GB £50 million between now and 2016 rather than GB £400 million. When does the Minister envisage that the remaining GB £350 million will be provided? He has said he is politically behind the project. Will the funding be forthcoming in 2017, 2018 or 2027? The Government must have some idea of when the remainder will be given.

Alan Farrell (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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The Minister has called for a discussion based on economic sustainability. That has been the focus of debate as politicians from Dublin, in particular, focused on the capital projects that may or may not go ahead. It will come as no surprise to anybody that I am particularly interested in metro north. Members on this side of the House based our proposals, as Opposition parties, on information provided to us by the previous Government. The problem is that there was no substance behind the budgetary headings in the capital budget. We have had to deal with that legacy.

We must be realistic in our approach to the capital budget, which has had to be reduced significantly. The bottom line is that the resources simply are not there. I support Deputy Donnelly's call for further information on the rationale behind the plan, particularly in regard to the projects we are likely to revisit in the coming years, such as metro north and Thornton Hall. These are projects in which there has been significant investment by the taxpayer over a period of years. A failure to provide a concrete rationale for these and other decisions that will be made in the coming years would be regrettable.

On a positive note, I welcome the commitment to proceed with the Luas BXD project, which will have an important impact on transport provision in the capital. Will the Minister outline the decision that has been made in regard to investment in the Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann fleets?

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Given that we effectively own Allied Irish Bank and that it is supposed to be releasing money into the economy, why does the State not insist that the bank lend it money at a reasonable rate in order to invest in capital projects?

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
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To clarify, is the Minister saying that there are proposals in this document which may be subject to change before the budget? Will he release the information on decision criteria and cost benefit analyses immediately so that we can digest it before the debate next week in the House?

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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In light of the Minister's decision to utilise the national lottery as a means of raising additional revenue for capital investment - and he seems to have linked that funding notionally with the national children's hospital - does he intend to lift some of the restrictions regarding the types of games that may be operated by the national lottery?

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I will address the questions in reverse order. In regard to the national lottery, I will put forward specific proposals. I cannot do so now, because there is a commercial sensitivity about what will be on offer. We have looked at what is done in the best countries in terms of income streams and how it can be best commercialised.

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Which countries would the Minister identify as the best?

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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That is perhaps a matter for a separate debate, perhaps by way of parliamentary question, in regard to structures and so on.

The idea is that we would consider how to get a better commercial take and how to front-load money. We expect the amount of money we can front-load will more than cover the component required for the national children's hospital. It is not notionally linked to it: it will guarantee that the national children's hospital will proceed. We have a choice to make. In the plan Deputy Dooley's Government produced there is an element for philanthropy and we need to make a call on how robust that component might be in the current climate. Regardless, we are determined to build the national children's hospital in the timelines provided, assuming that planning permission is granted as expected.

Regarding access to money from the banks, the problem is the State's capacity to borrow. We are constrained in what we can borrow as a State because we have-----

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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They are our banks.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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They are indeed, but it is not our money in them. We have recapitalised banks that were owned and we have a shareholding in them, but the volume of investment is not entirely our money and we need to make rational commercial decisions on lending. We are considering mechanisms to leverage additional resources through public-private partnerships. The banks, including AIB and other Irish banks, may well partner international banks, including the European Investment Bank in some of the projects that might proceed.

I agree entirely with Deputy Alan Farrell on the Luas BXD line. It did not make sense to build two Luas lines that did not interconnect. If one were to pick a project, it makes sense that it would at least be a unifying project. I regret that metro north will be postponed. To deal with the point about the economic case studies, these are in the line Departments and not in my Department. Enormous volumes of analysis are done on these big projects. Deputy Farrell also mentioned the money spent on Thornton Hall and the Minister for Justice and Equality is beside me. Very few of us on this side of the House were not shocked at the quantum of money used to buy a field. It was a peculiar way to go about a project to say "I have €40 million to spend. Who will sell me a field?" We cannot simply apply the logic that as we have wasted so much we should carry on regardless.

I am conscious of time.

Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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If the Minister has one more brief answer that would be fine, otherwise I thank the Deputies for their-----

Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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I have asked about 2016 twice.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I beg the Deputy's pardon. With the Chair's indulgence I might reply.

Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Yes, you may.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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There is no commitment in a quantum of money beyond what is committed, which is the €25 million in 2015 and 2016. We are engaging in a process. While I do not want to break confidences in that regard, the Northern authorities have strong views on the idea of phasing, considering different structures and whether it all needs to be of the standard specified, and we want to hear them.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
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Can the capital programme be changed before the budget and will the Minister immediately release to us what he can?

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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The public capital programme will certainly not be changed this side of the budget. I indicated that in the five-year horizon there may well be changes, but that is something we will debate in the coming years.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
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Will the Minister release the background information so we can consider it in more detail?

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Additional background information will accompany the budget documentation, including all the CRE information and that will come in the first week of December.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
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I understand. However, without background information it is impossible for us as parliamentarians to assess the capital programme, which is just a list. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform must have decision criteria and must have reviewed cost-benefit analyses across a range of projects.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I have already answered this question twice, but I will do it a third time. The grounding criteria for any particular project rest in the parent Department. I dealt in the generality of the envelope of money. The priorities were presented to me by Ministers and they have voluminous analyses of each project in their Departments, which is where the Deputy should pursue it.

Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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If the Deputy wishes he can table a question to the specific Minister.