Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

It might be slightly more than that.

I want to go back to the promissory notes. I understand the minimum amount for 2016 to 2018 was €500 million a year. According to a reply to a parliamentary question I got last night, it was €3 billion in 2016. It is €2 billion so far in 2017. That is way ahead. We met the Governor of the Central Bank, Professor Philip Lane, maybe a year ago about this. I think he said that they would be "extinguished". My understanding is that we printed money and have to take it back out of the economy and that is what the IOUs were, and that we have to extinguish them. We do not have to extinguish them as quickly, and the witnesses explained about how money is cheap at the moment. If we can park that and just spend it, and pay it down in the timeframe - I have a real problem with it and do not think we should be doing that - does that not leave some capacity to borrow for things that we can borrow for now and save later on?

I want to come back to a point that Deputy Catherine Connolly made. We are going to have cash fines imposed on us as a consequence of not meeting our 2020 climate targets. It will become a real issue for the Department of Finance when there are cash fines. It will not be something theoretical but something in practice. We are going to miss the 2020 targets and by virtue of the fact that we are on the wrong trajectory, we are going to have a real challenge with the 2030 targets. We should spend on some of the things that would ensure we avoid those fines, which could be very substantial. Would that not be a more prudent approach if there is the ability to pay this other way? Does that space exist if we do not approach the payment of those floating rate notes and have not accelerated it? Does that create a space to spend money in a different way where it is cheap to borrow and we will save money in hard cash and fines as early as 2020?