Maurice Hayes (Independent)

I welcome the report, which is a very useful and necessary exercise. Nevertheless, it is useful for one to cast a cold eye over what has been done. I do not think it is necessary to be in any way thin-skinned or defensive about the conclusions in the report. They are conclusions and not necessarily writ. Sometimes economists have a way of looking at things through an economic lens, which is difficult to translate into the world of political reality, because political and other judgments must be made at the same time.

The report points out the importance of cleaving to the policy of capital investment in infrastructural projects. It would be extremely counter-productive not to make the investment now. Most Departments with which I have dealt over the years have a tendency to scale back on projects in order to meet current financial stringencies. This has almost always been a mistake. When projects are scaled back – the M50 was mentioned as a case in point – they require even more expensive remedial works further down the line. It is necessary to relate these things to the capacity to provide current expenditure support for them, particularly to link it to training and other policies to ensure people are there to carry out the work.