Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister with regard to her taking amendment No. 18 back and having a look at it. It may look like throwing the dog a bone, in that it is the smallest and least consequential of these amendments. It is consequential, though, because strengthening this language can make a difference, even if it is only the substitution of a single word. I thank the Minister for taking this on board.

Regarding amendments Nos. 16 and 17, if the problem is the line, "shall not invest those resources, directly and indirectly", and this is found to be poorly phrased or placing too much of an onus on the pension managers, then this is one thing but that is not the consequential piece of the amendment. These are two provisions that exist already within our national law.

Building on the point made by Deputy Ó Cuív regarding private property, it is established in the Constitution that private property is subservient to the common good. Amendment No. 19 really goes to this idea of the common good. I accept the Minister's argument that this is not something well defined anywhere in law, or at least not that I can find. By God, though, we better figure out how to define it. The longer we keep defining the positive outcomes of our social and economic system based on a bottom line that just measures money, well then the deeper down the hole we dig ourselves.

Great work is happening around natural capital for example. Natural Capital Ireland is doing great work in this context. It is about how we can make this aspect appear on balance sheets. Great work is also happening in government in terms of the well-being framework, where we are trying to move away from a GDP-defined model of economic success to something that looks at what it is like to live within this society. I accept the Minister's rationale around amendment No. 19. We do not have a framework where we can do this work as yet. We would, though, want to get there because the clock is ticking.

On amendments Nos. 16 and 17, the other thing here concerns a situation where people are in an auto-enrolment scheme. The Minister stated there is no desire to differentiate between people in private schemes in respect of giving them the tax relief and all the rest of it but, as I said before, if I am in a private pension scheme, I can make a choice. If I am investing privately, I will deliberately ensure that my money is not placed somewhere I do not agree with, especially concerning cluster munitions, etc. I do not see this flexibility existing within the auto-enrolment scheme context. I acknowledge that the vast majority of people who will end up in this mechanism will default to whatever product they are offered and will not look too closely at it after that. A certain subsection of people, however, will say they would like to have their money spent in a particular way while they are preparing for their pension and that there are places where they would not want that money invested.

In the legislation as it stands currently, though, I do not see where this level of agency or choice exists. As the Minister said, this is, ultimately, people's private property but will people have the facility in the context of this legislation to make these kinds of ethical choices regarding where their money ultimately will be invested? This is where this legislation circles back around to the argument for Deputy Sherlock's idea of having a separate fund but we are not pursuing this aspect this evening.