Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the first part of what the Deputy said. He summarised my own thinking on the matter, which is that we would look at putting together a fund which would have a countercyclical effect on the economy. I will make one point. Let us say we were to set up the fund as I am describing and stop contributions in 2021, for the sake of argument. We would end up with a fund of approximately €3 billion, which could make a difference to the lives of many people in our country if we were to get into difficulty. An unfortunate effect of the awful difficulty we have gone through and are currently trying to get out of is that we have become a little anaesthetised to large amounts of money. A Government dealing with a slowdown in global economic growth or a global recession that had €3 billion or €3.5 billion available to it over a couple of years could make a difference through, for example, putting in place capital programmes or providing additional work to people if they lost their jobs because of what was happening in export markets. Amid all the debate regarding what I am seeking to do, that is the simple idea here and it could make a big difference. The Deputy is correct to say that my current direction of travel is to have a particular fund that would deal with that kind of cyclical experience.

Second, I am putting forward for evaluation by the committee the idea that, either within that or separately, or even held within Departments, we should be looking at the idea of whether we can better plan for when events are more predictable in the future but will have a lower effect rather than being a crisis for the entire country. Much of this is influenced by my time as Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, when I had to deal with a series of flooding events. If those flooding events happened towards the end of the year, at which point most capital expenditure had already been committed and most current money was gone, responding at the speed at which communities want could be difficult. That is why I am presenting this idea for discussion. I will see what the committee has to say about it when it gives its own views back to me.

The Deputy has outlined the different ways in which it could be funded. I have outlined them myself. He is right. It could mean that it could take quite a while to get up to a fund that would be of significant critical mass, possibly tens of billions. I think we still lose sight of the fact, in that debate, that billions of euro spent over 12, 18 or 24 months could have a significant effect on people's lives if we were facing into difficulty. The most recent crisis we went through absorbed €120 billion of the State's money on the fiscal side to deal with the difficulty that we were in. I hope we never go through an experience like that again but we will go through different difficulties. That is why I think there is value in this idea.