Finance Minister hopes his successor will spend more on essential infrastructure
The Minister for Finance says he hopes the new person in his job will help Ireland to play "catch up" on major public spending.
Michael Noonan will end a 35-year cabinet career when a new minister takes over in Finance from Wednesday.
Noonan told reporters that being Minister for Finance was the best job he ever had across his political career.
He added that he hopes his successor would do their best to make up for lost ground in big public projects.
In particular, Noonan pointed to the need for spending on “extra schools, extra health facilities, health centres, completing the roads programme, rolling out broadband… all those essential social and economic aspects of infrastructure that we need to invest in.
“During the bad years we didn’t have the money to do so. We were playing catch-up.”
