Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Yes, we have been asking hard questions, but the British economy post Brexit is much more introverted, so the likelihood is they are going to invest a much higher percentage of these funds within the island of Britain than we are. It happens in Ireland to a point, and on that point, one of the arguments we are making is, if we are going to be sucking money out of the Irish economy, whether that could be used in the economy. We need a lot of infrastructure in this country. Infrastructure always pays in the long term. Look at all the things we built ten or 20 years ago; they look dead cheap now. We need, in our particular island situation, to have a debate on this issue. There are two things here: paying the pension until the end to get a return, but also moving a mega amount of money, including a significant contribution from the State, offshore. It was said this is the argument about not burning the bond holders. At the end of the day, nobody knows where the bloody money goes because it gets lost in the network of financial transactions, funds and people pressing buttons on computers, but it does cede the control of sovereign money to the fund managers.