Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It appears from what the Minister is saying that he is still going to pull the bunny out of the hat next Tuesday, despite everything he said for the past ten years. It is not the way to do budgets. I acknowledge that there are moving parts but he has a sense of the quantum at this stage. That is usually published in the summer economic statement, which he and the Minister for Finance have decided not to publish this year. This decision was heavily criticised by our independent fiscal advisory council. That said, it appears that what the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has said to us is that there is a lot of uncertainty. I agree with that. I completely agree that we need to be very nimble and able to respond to unforeseen circumstances. There may be money set aside that I hope will never be drawn down because of an improvement in circumstances. One thing we know for sure at this stage, however, is that 2021 has to be the year of recovery. We need to stimulate the economy. What the Minister has suggested to me is that the recovery fund is really to deal with contingencies associated with Covid as opposed to the stimulus being requested. On budget day, there should be a package that stimulates the economy but it appears that this is not being presented because there is expenditure on Covid of €9 billion to keep the lights on. It is a recovery fund that is about contingencies that we can identify so I guess the Minister is not going to refer to additional capital or certain types of stimuli, and much of the other expenditure pertains to carried over costs. Where is the big ambition for stimulating the economy, which we know has to happen next year? In this regard, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council has identified, for illustrative purposes, a stimulus package of €10 billion over a two-year period.