Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I heard Mr. Danny McCoy's comments at the national economic dialogue. Mr. Brady is a contrarian in respect of the rainy day fund and so am I. He has argued that the investment should be made in a specific area of education and it is important to outline that. Has he concerns regarding the operation of the rainy day fund, even if the money does not go into education? the State will not be able to draw down from this fund unless there is an unforeseen event such as a natural disaster or an outbreak of disease. If the €500 million should be invested in education, which would I presume would support the SMEs and FDIs, does IBEC support the concept that €900 million of the available funding under the expenditure benchmark should not be utilised this year on capital or whatever other type of investment?

In that scenario the Minister would be left with about €800 million in uncommitted expenditure, while we are hearing that the health budget has overrun because of demand by €600 million which will be carried into next year's budget. Therefore there is little left for tax changes, not to mention dealing with other crises. What is IBEC's position on this?