The downward revision of the National Development Plan in the Infrastructure Investment Priorities to 2016 could have been worse, but the investment should have been much bigger, say the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU).

According to the congress Ireland has a serious infrastructural deficit, mass unemployment in construction and related occupations and the wider economy needs a greater boost than this package will deliver.

Paul Sweeney, Economic Advisor to the ICTU, said: "The total investment has been reduced from €56.6bn to €39bm, a cut of 31%"

While welcoming the fact that the overall investment programme has not been too drastically cut, he said a greater stimulus is needed.

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"The savage cuts in investment in the 1980s delayed recovery for years, but a bigger spend today could stimulate the economy now, when it is needed. He called on governments to revise the investment programme upwards in later years," he said.

Mr Sweeney rejected the view that because all of the money invested is borrowed, the Plan had to be reduced. He pointed out that all of the taxpayers' euros poured into the black hole that is the Irish banking sector, has also been borrowed.

"This vast 'pseudo-investment' in the banks funds no jobs, no schools, no hospitals, no clinics, no trams, no buses and only jobs for an overpaid professional elite," he added.

He accepted that there is more value for the spend, with lower tender prices, but that is precisely another reason for increased investment now, when it is cheap.

Congress also called for all stops to be pulled out to ensure that all money allocated is spent and that planning and bureaucratic obstacles be removed urgently.

(GK/BMcC)