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EU FISCAL RULES are hampering vital investment in Ireland, says the organisation representing Irish businesses, Ibec.
In it’s latest economic outlook, the group said the government should seek flexibility on EU fiscal rules for Ireland ahead of the next budget in October.
The EU’s fiscal policy rules set numerical targets for budgets, placing a permanent constraint on fiscal policy, impacting on a government’s budget balance, debt and expenditure.
Upbeat predictions
Ibec said while their assessment is “upbeat” there needs to be a significant ramp up in investment expenditure.
It said massive spending cut-backs during the crisis years meant that Ireland was playing catch-up across many aspects.
Ibec said the current EU rules placed inappropriate and unnecessary restrictions on investment, and while Ireland needs to spend sensibly, it also need to invest ambitiously in areas such as transport, education and broadband.
The group said the government should allocate an additional €1 billion for infrastructure and innovation investment in the next budget, over and above the planned budget package of €1.5 billion.
Ibec’s head of policy and chief economist Fergal O’Brien said the Irish economy continues to perform very strongly, with GDP growth to exceed 5% this year.
However we are hitting bottlenecks. We now need to invest ambitiously in the country’s future or our growth prospects will be damaged. EU fiscal rules are complex and while their principles are sound, their current application is unnecessarily restricting Ireland’s and other counties’ ability to invest.
Budget 2016
He said before it finalises plans for Budget 2016 the government should seek flexibility from the EU Commission for a further €1 billion investment in much needed infrastructure and innovation.
Ibec said Ireland will have the fastest growing population in the EU over the next 30 years, but investment spending is currently the third lowest.
70% of the expenditure reductions in the crisis years came from the capital budget and the investment shortfall is now €2.5 billion annually. The private sector has an important role to play, but government must also invest much more.
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Chemical free glue???
@Ding Ding Denny: was just going to say, the glue is probably hydro carbon based
@Ding Ding Denny: You didn’t notice all the man-made fibre tents in the pictures? Yes the protesters are using the goods manufactured for the consumer of today, just like people flying to Climate Change conferences it is not hypocritical, if they can affect change the change they cause would far outweigh the damage they have done by using tents made of man-made fibre or chemical glues.
@Diarmuid Hunt: that’s a big if
@Stephen Brady: It is, can’t blame them for trying, sitting idly by definitely isn’t going to change anything.
@Diarmuid Hunt: But the tents are re-usable and last long term… that’s kind of the entire point.
Thats like you calling an environmental activist who reuses the same water bottle for 10 years a hypocrite
@Vin: I never called them hypocrites, I’m pointing out the stupidity of calling climate activists hypocrites for using modern technology as a means to an end, read past the first line of my comment.
@Ding Ding Denny: hopefully they didn’t use the oil derived glue but that made from animal parts. That way they’d be reducing carbon emissions.
Crusties! Well said Bojo!
Knew they were stuck up!
Bring in a JCB, sorted
A bunch of lunatics
@Gisbert Bayertz: The thing about this is when we’re presented with this message in a calm, rational manner, shown the science in a way we can understand, ideally with a voiceover by Sir David Attenborough. Then we’re sold, no need to do any more.
We’ll happily give up all our plastic packaging, we’ll recycle to our hearts content, we’ll clean our beaches and save our tiny animals and even our creepy crawly critters.
The problem begins with what we perceive to be the usual “rent a mob” telling us that we MUST do all the above, most of us will agree with Boris Johnston’s description of them as “unco-operative crusties”. We see the rich and famous like Emma Thompson who will make appearances at events like this, then think nothing of hopping on a plane to fly first class across the Atlantic. No weeks roughing it on a boat for them.
One protester walked out of a Sky interview when he kept insisting how much he cared about the planet and the people on it and wouldn’t stand by and do nothing. Sky’s Adam Boulton pointed out that parliament wasn’t even sitting so all they’d achieved was to cause disruption for everyone else.
It’s the perceived hypocrisy of a bunch of jumped up kids, each of them with the latest mobile phones and never far from a WiFi hotspot telling the rest of us what we have to do. The majority of those protestors will move on next year to protest again at the next virtuous, noble cause. They just happen to be right, this time.
@Arch Angel: Are you for real? Rational arguments backed up by science have been made for years and there hasn’t been enough change made. The reason you’re seeing radical protest is because there hasn’t been enough action on climate change.
@Diarmuid Hunt: I said we get it, I never claimed politicians get it.
@Arch Angel: I don’t know, I understand that you and I get it but I don’t think we speak for the entire populace. Awareness has definitely grown and is going in the right direction but I don’t think that it is as widespread as you think.
@Diarmuid Hunt: You have a point, in which case it may be fair to say those who are going to get the argument have already done so, some will never get it.
These protests by “unco-operative crusties” who seem to make a hobby of protesting from one virtuous cause to the next are doing very little to further their cause and only serve to antagonise people.
@Arch Angel: Possibly, from reading The Journal it does seem to be having a detrimental effect to their cause judging by the reactions of some people and the amount of likes they’re getting. Then again how good is The Journal comment section as a metre stick for the attitude around this? I know you point at the forever-protesters and there will be an element of that in any protest
, you have said that this time they are right, a stopped clock and all that, but some people will latch on to that side of things rather than look at the merits of this particular protest. Any protest should be weighed on its merit and not on whether forever-protesters are present.
@Arch Angel: except David Attenborough has been asking us for years to change and to listen to the scientists and you haven’t listened to him either so the rest of your point is moot.
Tents wont be up to much when they rip them back up.
Does using public money for personal pleasure get you arrested
A good bateing is required
@Michael Wynne: I hear you give a master bateing yourself.
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