Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Mr. Coffey. His point is absolutely right. Housing associations are involved in the rest of Europe. That is not what is happening in the Rebuilding Ireland plan. They have slightly changed the balance, essentially because of people protesting over the last year. However, the change is only very slight. Looking at the Rebuilding Ireland proposals, we see that the majority of delivery still depends on private sector providers. That is very alarming. I do not see how it will deliver affordable housing, but even if it happens, it will be a huge call on the public finances which will grow exponentially over the following years. I suggest that this should be looked into.

I want to raise also Ireland's reliance on the corporate tax receipts from a very small number of multinational corporations, MNCs. The witnesses' warnings about Brexit could be added to this consideration. Do the witnesses not think that due to these considerations, we must radically reconfigure our economy? Another danger, which has not been mentioned, is climate change. The cost of not meeting our climate change targets is another potentially big financial call on public revenues. Would the witnesses not say that all three of those very serious risks mean that we have to reconfigure our economy radically? In that context, is it sensible for the IFAC to suggest that one of our buffers should be the rainy day fund rather than using revenues while we have them and putting them into strategic investment in key areas where we could diversify the economy on a more sustainable basis? The rainy day fund just creates a cash buffer, as it were, whereas strategic investment creates a buffer of sustainable investment in areas that would diversify the economy and make it less vulnerable in some of those areas, such as renewable energy, which would lessen the focus on MNCs, beef exports to Britain and so on. This is where we should now be thinking of investing whatever funds we have for this purpose.