Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. That is helpful. First of all, while we have the data in terms of GDP, what we do not have the data for is general Government balance out to 2030 or 2032. We do not have the data in terms of the Exchequer balance. We do not have any of the capital expenditure data from that period. I am sure the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council by now is sick, sore and tired of telling the Government that it needs to provide five-year projections and it still is not doing five-year projections. Therefore, we do not have that data. The one thing we can tell - the Minister is 100% right - is how much money we will have to put into the fund. What we are completely blind to is the impact that would have in terms of our Exchequer deficit or the funding available to meet other needs at that point in time. That is a problem.

I completely agree with the Minister when he listed off a number of bodies and organisations that say we should not use and should not be dependent on windfall taxes to fund repeated current expenditure. He could add my party to that. I do not believe we should be dependent on and use windfall taxes for repeated current expenditure. That would be inappropriate. It would not be learning the mistakes of previous Governments. In the lead-up to the crash, Governments did rely on volatile stamp duty in the middle of a housing boom to fund current repeated expenditure. We saw the consequences of that when we had the financial crash. We had both. We were left exposed as a result of that. However, that does not mean to say that windfall corporation taxes cannot be used for one-off or, indeed, catch-up programmes. I have been saying this for quite a number of years and I see now that the Government has talked about windfall additional capital expenditure. It is right and appropriate that we would have one-off expenditure to meet the needs not only of society, but also to address the biggest issue that businesses are now talking to us and to the Government about, which is that housing is becoming a serious issue for them in terms of attracting new investment and expanding the footprint they have at the minute. The competitiveness council also pointed that out.

The Minister talked about deterioration in the public finances. As Deputy Nash mentioned, there is no definition as to what that means. The SPU that was published two weeks ago stripped €4.5 billion off our surpluses because the Minister suggested that the €4.5 billion contingency fund will be required for each and every year into the future the SPU covers. Is that a deterioration of the public finances? If we did a calculation, which we have not done in four years, regarding the impact of pillar 1 and pillar 2 and found that this had a larger impact, is that a deterioration in the public finances? Have we got a deterioration in the public finances when we still have a general Government balance? Is going into Exchequer deficit a deterioration in the public finances?

Let us just stick with that point now in terms of Exchequer deficit. The Minister said that if we have to borrow then it would be up to future Governments to decide not to put the 0.8% into the fund but maybe a lesser number or nothing at all. However, what we see here with the lack of information beyond 2027 from the SPU is that if we put this money into the fund in 2026 and 2027, we are going to have an Exchequer deficit. We will have an Exchequer deficit of close to €2 billion in 2026 and €1.3 billion in 2027. The Minister might explain to the committee how that Exchequer deficit is funded. Does that trigger a question for the Minister for Finance with regard to putting the entire amount into the fund?