Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

It proposed to take €2 billion from the NPRF and borrow a further €18 billion to make a €20 billion fund. The need to find an additional €18 billion was a major flaw in that argument.

We have reason for hope in the future. The idea that nobody in this country has money is fallacious. We have to encourage the people who have money to invest in productive activities. I am also keen on motivating communities. If a community of 1,000 created ten jobs, which is certainly possible for the communities with which I am familiar, we could create 40,000 jobs across the economy, while at the same time increasing the tax take and reducing the social welfare bill. We need to engender something in the mind that is not necessarily reliant on State money but that creates an air of community commitment to job creation. If we were to encourage people who have wealth to use their money to create jobs in every small industry in the country our financial position would improve tremendously.

I am curious as to whether the Government has progressed the initiative on sovereign annuities. If it is looking for genuine sources of money, the pension industry has significant potential. However, if the Government is to go down this route, it will have to give an undertaking that it will not default on the money. That was the argument traditionally proffered by the pension industry for not investing in Irish bonds but pension funds invest in high risk equities as well as in German and French bonds with very bad returns. Legislation passed by this House before Christmas provided for the establishment of a sovereign annuity whereby NTMA would issue bonds to the pension industry. It was believed that between €4 billion and €5 billion could be raised, which is not to be sneezed at. We would, of course, have to pay interest on the bonds but we would be doing so over a period of 35 years and the money would be repaid into the economy.

We acted on a proposal by the trade union movement to issue solidarity bonds, although I do not think the Department of Finance was particularly enthusiastic about them. If these bonds had been sold with the same vigour as SSIAs we would have found a great number of individuals willing to invest in the future of the young people of this country. There is a call for old-fashioned patriotism where people who have funds would make them available to create better infrastructure, more jobs and a worthwhile future.

I was interested in what Deputy Peter Mathews had to say about the EU, the IMF and the €150 billion. What created the €100 billion problem in our banks, which it was in November, was that people were pulling money out of the banks. The challenge was that the Europeans had created uncertainty and people had got scared and started pulling money out of banks. The Europeans then came knocking on our door and saying they would lend us no more. I do not agree with Deputy Mathews when he says Ireland's difficulty was a major crisis for the European Union.

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