Ireland to spend around 80 billion euros in new 10-year capital plan, PM says

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's new 10-year capital plan due later this year will continue to ramp up investment by laying out spending of around 80 billion euros ($94 billion), prime minister Leo Varadkar said. Dublin already plans to double capital spending over the next five years, tackling bottlenecks built up after investment ground to a near-halt during the financial crisis. Spending remains among the lowest in the European Union. Current plans include an investment of 27 billion euros in the four years to 2021, with the annual budget for capital expenditure increasing to 7.8 billion in 2021 from 5.3 billion euros next year when Ireland expects to balance its budget for the first time in a decade. The government has said it will finalise the new capital by the end of the year and underpin it with a national planning framework stretching out to 2040. "That will set out a capital investment plan probably in the region of 80 billion euros over 10 years. We'll be planning for a country with a population of 5.5 million people by 2040 and that is going to require lots of capital investment," Varadkar told Ireland's TV3 in an interview late on Wednesday. By Varadkar's estimate, capital spending would average 8.7 billion euros a year from 2022 to 2027. Ireland's central bank governor warned this week that the government may need to cool parts of the rapidly growing economy in a couple of years, potentially by raising taxes, if ramped up public investment coincides with full employment. Ireland's economy has grown faster than any other in Europe for the past three years and employment is showing no sign of slowing down. The current jobless rate of 6.3 percent is down from over 15 percent five years ago. Full employment means that just about everyone who wants a job has one, a situation which leads to workforce shortages and wage inflation. (Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Richard Pullin)