I gave the Senator a little injury time there.

I welcome the Minister. I have no doubt that he could have a very senior financial portfolio in the next couple of weeks and I wish him well in that regard. I congratulate the Minister on the work he has done in recent years.

I wish to discuss a few matters relating to the mid-term review. I welcome the review and I congratulate the Minister on bringing it forward. It is only right and proper that we should have an opportunity to have our say on and an input into it, and that the public should also have its say.

It was interesting to listen to Senator McDowell's comments on public sector pay and the amount of applicants for positions in An Garda Síochána and the Army. They have great confidence in the sector and they would like to work in the public sector. I have great time for public sector officials and it is only right that they should be well looked after. It is also only right that we should have the best and the brightest in our public sector. We have some very bright people in the public sector and, as is the case with industry, why should the sector not have the brightest and the best? The public sector is a huge employer and provides many services to the public, namely, those relating to transport - including, until recently, our national airline - health, policing and the Army. State and semi-State bodies have provided great services to the nation over the past 100 years. We should have the brightest and the best people in the public sector. We should ensure that they are looked after and well paid.

There should be a bonus system in the public sector. This is a matter to which the Minister should give consideration. There are some companies that reward their staff for coming up with new ideas and the public sector should look at that. Why should public sector staff not bring forward ideas that may streamline processes or bring huge savings to both the sector and the State? People who do this and come up with ideas should be rewarded. The Minister should examine this matter.

As the Minister said, we are really only talking about the €2.6 billion that remains to be allocated on the basis of the outcome of the mid-term review. We are looking at housing and infrastructure. On the €2.2 billion for housing, there is no doubt that there is a huge shortage of houses throughout the country. We have not yet considered the cost of building houses and I am of the view that the Government must do so. Builders tell me that they are not building houses because it is costs too much to do so. They cannot get back the money it costs to build houses. Why, therefore, should they build houses only to lose money? In the context of a house that costs between €200,000 and €250,000, the VAT can be anywhere from €30,000 to €40,000. The Government is not getting that money because the houses are not being built. The Government should, particularly in the context of new builds, examine the position regarding VAT. There have been major implications for builders in recent years regarding various regulations - such as those relating to insulation standards, etc. - put in place in respect of the building of houses. Builders tell us that it costs in the region of €178,000 to construct a new house and that is without taking the cost of the site into consideration. This presents a huge conundrum because the vast majority of people have to obtain loans of €200,000 to €250,000 in order to purchase homes. In most cases, it would mean that the two loan applicants would need to be working. We have no choice but to examine the possibility of reducing the costs relating to building new houses. Perhaps the Minister could look at this aspect in the next couple of weeks or months.

I shall now turn to the issue of infrastructure. Senator Gavan referred to the Cork-to-Limerick road and Senator McDowell mentioned the roads from Dublin to the west, Sligo and Letterkenny. I would like to pitch in my tuppence ha'penny worth regarding the N5. At present, a new section of the latter is being planned in respect of the route between Westport and Castlebar. This area was neglected during the boom. All major Irish cities were linked in the boom times. For example, Dublin was linked to Galway, Limerick, Cork and Waterford by means of various motorways. However, the area north of the Dublin-Galway route has been neglected. We talk of regional development and bringing regional balance to the country but the entire area to which I refer has been neglected. I ask the Minister to look at the area in question in the context of extending the motorway from Mullingar to the west, with a network of link roads to Castlebar, Sligo and Letterkenny. Senator McDowell is correct in that we should take a long-term view in respect of this matter and see how it might be possible to achieve what I am suggesting by means of a single motorway as opposed to several motorways.

Today the Taoiseach and Cabinet announced strategic development zone, SDZ, status for Ireland West Airport Knock.

I welcome that announcement, which I hope will be backed up with some tax incentives. Knock international airport is one of the drivers of regional development in the west. The special development zone for the area around the airport must be supported through tax incentives or grants to ensure proper regional development takes place. More than 700,000 passengers use the airport each year and flights depart for various parts of the UK daily. It is a driving force in the local economy. Unlike Cork, Limerick, Rosslare and Dublin, County Mayo does not have a port, nor does it have a fast train service and, as previous speakers noted, it does not have a motorway either. I ask the Minister to consider extending tax designation to the SDZ around Knock international airport.

Senator Paddy Burke may be looking for divine inspiration. I welcome the Minister to the House and I am pleased to have an opportunity to discuss with him these two pressing matters for the State. As he knows only too well, from 2007 until the middle of this decade, the focus of the State was very much on the immediate viability of the country, economic recovery, getting people back to work and using the limited resources available to us to protect and promote public services to the best of our ability. The Minister will agree that all those who made the recovery possible, from businesses and the trade unions to the Administration in which he and I both served and the people of Ireland, deserve credit. The challenge we now face is to make choices on how best to use the resources available to us to expand the economy and create opportunities and invest in better and more public projects and services. These choices and challenges are much more appetising than those that faced any Administration in recent times.

The review of the capital programme and the Public Service Pay Commission report which forms the basis of the ongoing negotiations on a successor to the Lansdowne Road agreement will help to dictate the future direction of the country and the extent to which economic recovery can be felt in an equitable fashion across the country. The review is welcome. The 2016 to 2021 programme, Building on Recovery, set about the task of helping Ireland to recover from what many described as a lost decade of infrastructural investment. As the Minister noted, the programme involved a total backed capital investment of approximately €42 billion if we include the projects identified by semi-State bodies and public private partnerships.

There is now a consensus that the correct course of action is to do more by investing in projects that society and the economy need and to do so while market conditions are not only benign but very propitious. I can identify many such projects in my local area, as previous speakers did in their home areas. One with which the Minister will be familiar from a previous visit he made to Drogheda Port Company some years ago when he was Minister with responsibility for transport, is the Drogheda Port northern access route. This project is critical to the ongoing development of Drogheda which is, by some measure, the largest town in the country. This important infrastructural project is needed to relieve traffic from the medieval town centre and facilitate the swift movement of traffic from the port to the M1. While much of it will be funded by development contributions to allow residential and commercial development to take place in the northern environs of Drogheda, some State investment is also required.

The often neglected town of Ardee in mid-County Louth also requires investment for the N2 bypass. Anyone who has travelled through the town on a busy Friday evening will agree that it is one of the most difficult bottlenecks in the country. It is on the N2 national route and requires investment in a bypass to allow it to develop to its full potential.

More money would be available and we would be having a very different conversation today if the Government were to postpone the sale of part of the State shareholding in AIB. I am not prone to hyperbole - there is enough exaggeration and mock indignation in this House and the Lower House to last us all a lifetime - but the decision to dispose of approximately €3 billion worth of AIB shares owned by the Irish people for the purpose of making a very minor dent in our national debt is bizarre.

Hear, hear.

The Government has much explaining to do on this issue. I am not convinced as to the rationale for the disposal of these shares at this time. After everything the country has experienced and after all the pain caused by the bank rescue and related economic problems, it is incredible that the final act in office of the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, will be to deliver a barrel load of cash to our creditors to deal with an entirely manageable national debt and to do so when people need homes and health services above all else. There is no demand for this sale and I am not convinced that it needs to take place now. I cannot understand the reason the Government is so determined to carry on regardless and give the two fingers to the will of the Dáil, as expressed in a motion proposed by the Labour Party several weeks ago.

There is every chance that the fiscal rules will change as leaders across the European Union recognise that we need to return to the idea of a social Europe and move away from a Europe that appears to be focused solely on managing economies and reducing debt at all costs. Public sector trade unions are engaging with the Minister's officials in an effort to reach an accommodation and identify if a successor agreement to the Lansdowne Road agreement can be found. The wrong decision taken on the AIB shares and some comments made by the Minister who appears to be the Taoiseach in waiting on the management of public sector industrial relations in future have not helped the mood music. The best thing politicians can do is stay out of these negotiations and allow the public sector trade unions and the Minister and his officials to continue to do the job they have been asked to do. I hope the Fine Gael Party can break its duck and do something it has not managed to do previously, namely, successfully negotiate a public sector deal on its own. I genuinely wish the Minister every success in that undertaking because the country needs an agreement. I will await developments with interest.

My party is proud of the role it played in stabilising the public finances and ensuring, during the difficult period covered by the Haddington Road and Lansdowne Road agreements, that there were no compulsory redundancies in the public sector. We are also proud of the protections we introduced in the area of outsourcing and the prevention of mass privatisation of public services and State companies. When resources became available the Labour Party, with its partner in government from 2011 to 2016, ensured it was those on lower and middle incomes who benefitted most from the resources that became available, in particular, in the context of the Lansdowne Road agreement. I hope this principle is retained in the context of the negotiations being undertaken by the Minister's officials.