Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have read in the newspapers and seen the coverage in respect of the Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Michael McGrath, and the healthy surplus we have. That relates to the very healthy corporation tax rates that are coming in. Those things do not happen by accident. We are a very favourable country for investment and foreign direct investment because of our good governance, membership of the European Union, being a stable democracy and all of those positive things we espouse. It certainly is a change from a number of years ago. That is fine but it is a question of how we spend that money and how we can help people. We have pressing needs, obviously, in housing, which is not an easy, quick fix in terms of builds. We have financing and we need to put that to good use. I ask for a debate on public spending and the issues pertaining to it at the moment. There are a number of areas that can be sorted quickly, for example, our local authorities. In Galway there has been serious underfunding for decades and it is an opportune time to sort that out once and for all. There are easy wins for local authorities such as providing funding this year, for this summer, for our road networks. Local authorities would be able to spend however many millions they got to provide better roads throughout the country. There is an absolute need and a concern from councillors that there is never enough funding for local roads. Because there is a surplus, if the Minister was disposed to provide that funding across all of our local authorities, a number of millions each to put into roads this year, it is something we could see happening very quickly. It would be a good win for local authorities and a prudent use of the funding that we have. Getting back to the original point, we have a surplus and we need to assist people as best we can. I am calling for a debate on these matters.