€2bn investment - Delaying is not a virtue

The Cabinet decision to approve the €2bn stimulus package of investment in infrastructural development should be welcomed.

Surely, it makes more sense to be paying people to do constructive work rather than to be paying them to be unemployed.

The money will be raised from public-private partnership, the National Pensions Reserve Fund, and the European Investment Bank. It will be invested in road improvements and the go-ahead has been given for the postponed DIT campus at Grangegorman.

Some of these projects were delayed last August, but have now been approved, which raises questions about whether they should have been delayed in the first place. At times this Government has apparently tried to make a virtue out of putting things on the long finger.

The Cabinet was supposed to be considering the alcohol bill yesterday but this was again deferred, apparently because of opposition from some ministers. Even publicans are uneasy with the present situation.

The public obviously desires that the alcohol issue should be tackled, especially in the wake of the recent outrageous scenes at Phoenix Park.

It seems, however, the Government is again content to put this issue on the long finger.