Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister touched on on-balance sheet and off-balance sheet spending. What planning has he and the Department done regarding potential off-balance sheet spending? I am thinking, in particular, of recent conversations about the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, and the NAMA reserve. The fund has €5.4 billion and the NAMA reserve amounts to €2.4 billion. There are conflicting opinions as to whether that can be used in the context of the mandate of those organisations. They have to generate a commercial return and must impact positively on the economy.

There are also conflicting opinions on whether the money can be considered to be off-balance sheet. The Department of Finance told the housing committee last May that ISIF expenditure impacts on the expenditure benchmark. The Minister for Finance confirmed that when he addressed the committee as well. However, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council contradicted this. Mr. Eddie Casey told the same committee that the ISIF was set up with a statutory mandate to invest on a commercial basis and that "investment by ISIF on this basis would not impact the calculation of compliance with the fiscal rules". We have also had conflicting opinions from Europe. Mr. Micheal Tutty, former vice-president of the European Investment Bank, said his understanding was that Government expenditure funded from the ISIF or NAMA would count against expenditure but funding from the ISIF for housing development undertaken by entities outside the general government sector would not count.

We are probably all in agreement that we need to do whatever we can to make the argument that those funds can be used for off-balance sheet spending. What has the Department done to put that argument together given the conflict surrounding this issue? We cannot seem to decide whether this can be done. Clearly, there is a large pot of money involved. As the Minister for Finance said, getting the money is not a problem; the problem is using it for that purpose.