Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have referred to some of the remarks made by Senator Barrett. I do not disagree with him. My personal view is that more needs to be done on expenditure than tax but we must get the balance right. With regard to capital expenditure we had many vanity projects in the past 15 years. At one point we spent ¤9 billion a year on capital projects. What value did we obtain from these? The great majority of capital expenditure this year and next year will be on schools and primary health care centres, ensuring the Government's plans for health are fulfilled and that the huge bulge in population coming into our primary and post primary schools is adequately dealt with. I do not regard these as vanity projects. They make good sense and will give good value.

I want to nail the issue that no savings have been made. Let us be clear, three years ago the totality of the public sector pay and pension bill was ¤20 billion and now it is ¤17.5 billion. The previous Government and this-----