Sir, - Denis Coughlan (News Features, June 26th) raised important issues about the future of State assets and the need for infrastructural investment.
As a country we are now approaching the average per capita income of our EU counterparts. What we must remember, however, is that many European countries have been relatively well-off for decades, whereas we have never before achieved our current level of wealth and that level has manifested itself only in the recent past.
This means that other European countries have had the opportunity over the decades to build up their infrastructure, and not just the economic infrastructure of industrial facilities, roads and telecommunications. They have also been able to develop essential social infrastructure: hospitals, social housing, early education and childcare facilities, and pension funds.
The need for investment in our economic infrastructure has been recognised by all commentators. But I strongly believe that it is just as important that we invest in our social infrastructure. This has economic justification. You can't have a booming economy and, at the same time, a divided society. But it is also justified on its own merits. We as a Government want to build a society of which we can all be proud and of which everybody can be a part. The economy is a means to that end, not an end in itself.
Indeed, the need for a broader approach to investment has been recognised by the ESRI in its recent report on national investment priorities which proposed investment in areas such as social housing and early childhood education. The National Pensions Policy Initiative, which I launched last year, proposed the establishment of an explicit social insurance fund to secure the future of the coming generations of pensioners. The current Exchequer surpluses, arising from the prudent financial management put in place since 1987, and the sale of State-owned companies give us the opportunity to make such sound investments for the future.
If we are to build an inclusive society, as promised in our Action Programme, this form of investment is essential and I am confident that it will be delivered as we move into the new millennium. - Yours, etc., Dermot Ahern TD,
Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs, Store Street, Dublin 1.