Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 19 June 2013

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform

Disposal of State Assets and Quarterly Review: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform

4:55 pm

Photo of Ciarán LynchCiarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

A significant change was renegotiated with regard to the €3 billion sum. The initial intention, as agreed by the troika with the previous Administration, was that the sum in its entirety would go to pare down debt. The negotiation by the new Government was for a 50:50 split between debt repayment and job creation. As we are beginning to exit the bailout programme and that target is on the horizon, given that the promissory note issue has been resolved and that other matters in regard to the long-term restructuring of the banking debt and other debts have been put in place, is it time the other 50%, rather than paring down debt, was targeted towards the National Pensions Reserve Fund, NPRF, in case of a rainy day? One of the consequences of the economic meltdown was that the NPRF was depleted. Is it not time we started to put money back into the fund, and does the Minister agree that this should be done through the sale of assets?

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