Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I wish to pick up on the rainy day fund. The first point is an obvious one in that for lots of people out there the rain is already pouring in terms of the crisis of homelessness, especially when 2,000 children are sleeping in hotels. The questions I have relate to, first, the recognition of that reality and, second, the fact that we already have what one could call a rainy day fund in terms of the Strategic Investment Fund. My point is the same one as Deputy Doherty made, namely, that we are constrained from spending such a fund because of the expenditure benchmark. What is the point of accruing a further rainy day fund into which one puts as much money as one wants but the expenditure benchmark will still apply so down the line we will have a problem in terms of spending it? It depends on what the medium-term potential economic growth in the future is, as to whether we could spend it, but the worry is that we will end up doing to the rainy day fund what we did to our previous rainy day fund, the National Pensions Reserve Fund, where more than €20 billion was used to bail out the banks. Is that the intention? In the summer economic statement it was said that the purpose behind the fund is to ensure that liquid assets are available to be deployed in a timely and countercyclical manner to help smooth the business cycle. Is that a reference to having an amount of money set aside for a future bailout because we raided the existing bailout fund?

Another question relates to the Apple tax case. When does the Minister expect to receive a decision from the Commission on that? The Government has been very eager to welcome the response to the question posed by Marian Harkin, MEP, on water charges but it seems less willing to accept a decision to the effect that a major multinational corporation owes the country an amount of tax and let us see how much that is. Is it the case that the State has spent €670,000 to date defending the case? If the Commission rules against the State and therefore the State continues to fight it and the case goes to the European Court of Justice, has the Minister set aside money to fight that and how much in terms of legal costs would he expect that to be? At any level does he see the deep irony for people that we are going to spend taxpayers’ money to defend a court case that is about a multinational giving us money? We are saying we do not want the money and we do not want tax that the European Commission is saying is owed to the State.