Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Everybody has had an opportunity to ask some questions at this stage. At least one Deputy has indicated a desire to ask another question. Before I go into a second round, I will ask the Minister a number of questions. The Minister touched on the European view on this matter. It is very early stages. I would have thought our European partners' view would be that budgetary issues are managed within the fiscal rules. If there is no willingness to move from that then expenditure coming out of the fund would have to count as expenditure. We would get no benefit from looking at expenditure going into it. Could there be a European view not in favour of states establishing funds of this sort? Would they prefer to see the budgetary process managed primarily through the current and existing fiscal rules set-up rather than states engaging in this process? If we were to establish a fund - I cannot see how we ever would - that was of sufficient size and scale to deal with a countercyclical issue, the deployment of the fund would probably be in breach of the fiscal rules. How would we handle that with our European partners if we do not have some understanding that the fund can operate in some space parallel or outside the fiscal rules?