Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We touched on some of these topics earlier. The section allows for the Minister to make a reduced payment into the fund. I want to circle back to a point I made earlier. It is all, half or nothing in this regard. He mentioned in his contribution that this may give certainty to the NTMA. I would dispute that because the agency will not be certain about any money going into the fund given a deterioration can happen quite rapidly. It would be wrong of the NTMA to bank on money before it is provided, and I am sure it would not do so. The section provides for the full amount or zero, so that is the level of the certainty for which it provides. It is structured as a percentage of the general government balance, GGB, of the previous year and a decision is, therefore, made in advance. It does not allow for a certain scenario. I will go back to my earlier point. The Minister talked about capital that is available privately or through the ISIF for private housing but voted capital expenditure is far too low to meet the needs of society and he did not address that issue. We are talking about an extra €500 million across all Departments in 2027. How can we expect to ramp up social, affordable or cost-rental homes to the scale required if that is the level of ambition?

The Minister or a future Minister could increase voted capital expenditure. It may be the case that we cannot put €4 billion into the future Ireland fund. It may be the case that we do not want to reduce it to €2 billion, which is the second option provided for in this legislation, but we may want to put in €3 billion. Instead of putting zero into the fund, we may want to put in €1.5 billion but there is no flexibility in the legislation to go in between the numbers that have been suggested.

The bigger question is: what is a deterioration in the economic and fiscal position of the State? Let us examine what has happened in the stability programme update, SPU, and consider a hypothetical situation. If we were having this conversation three weeks ago, our surpluses in the years 2027 and 2028 would have been anticipated as €4.5 billion higher. If we have this conversation in a couple of months, perhaps when all the negotiations at OECD level are finished, we might find that our expected surpluses have reduced further by quite a significant amount. Given the situation in terms of immigration and the challenges with regard to our health budget, we may find that our anticipated surpluses have reduced further. That may not all happen in one year and may happen gradually. We have seen the SPU impact. Perhaps next year we will see impacts on pillars 1 and 2. We could then see an issue in respect of the cost of €2.6 billion as the immigration challenges may have significantly increased. Does all of that lead to a deterioration in the fiscal position? The description is so broad that there are no real criteria for what it means. It does not suggest going into Exchequer deficit, or an Exchequer deficit as a percentage of the economy. It does not suggest that it relates to a general government balance or a general government deficit. Because this legislation applies over a significant period, we could have a gradual deterioration. In a way, that is beneficial. For a Minister for Finance, it is a great section because he or she makes the call at the end of the day. He or she can say that in the round, when we look at this and that, he or she believes there is a deterioration in the public finances and a resolution is brought to Cabinet. In a way, I support that because it gives the Minister the flexibility to increase capital investment, which is lacking. However, the problem is that there are only three options under this section, those being the full amount, half the amount or zero. We could obviously go above the full amount, which would be welcome because there may be windfall receipts, particularly if pillar 1 is not implemented. There may be additional receipts from which we could benefit and, therefore, it would be appropriate that those receipts would go into the fund in a given year or years.