Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 257: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of jobs that would be created by an additional investment of €750 million in capital expenditure. [35938/11]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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The amount of employment generated by capital expenditure depends on how that expenditure is invested. For example, the purchase of new rail rolling stock would generate little direct employment in Ireland as such stock is generally produced abroad. Furthermore, different types of public construction project have different levels of labour intensity. For example, smaller scale projects such as school building and repair, or smaller local and regional road-works, tend to be more labour intensive than major national infrastructural projects.

As the Deputy will be aware, the details of an extensive review of the public capital programme were published by my Department on 10 November 2011 in "Infrastructure and Capital Investment 2012-2016: Medium Term Exchequer Framework". The focus of that review, which culminated in the publication of the Framework, was the identification of infrastructural investment that can aid economic growth, generate sustainable jobs in the medium term, and address urgent social requirements.

In relation to job creation, it is important to note that much of the capital programme for the next five years will be geared towards smaller, more labour intensive projects. However, it is also noteworthy that investment in enterprise supports has the highest direct employment impact. Accordingly, the review made a point of protecting supports to the enterprise sector primarily through agencies such as Enterprise Ireland and the IDA. The unprecedented level of investment over the past few years and in 2012 delivered through the Enterprise Development Agencies can foster sustainable and valuable employment in the exporting sectors of the economy which will be critical to recovery. While the overall capital envelope for 2012 has been reduced, we have actually held the level of capital allocation for the enterprise sector relative to the preceding period.