Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To make a point general to all these amendments, and I support all of them, I do not think anyone is proposing that bad investments be made. I do not think anyone is suggesting that suboptimal investment decisions be made. I know that is not what the Minister is saying either. I think the proposition, though, is that in all these contexts, what we are trying to do is eliminate a tier of investments that might be made that would make financial sense but that would be ethically unconscionable. I do not think anybody wants to see this happen. I am quite sure the Department does not want to see it.

It is then a question of whether the legislation does enough to ensure this type of investment is prevented. As I instanced earlier, would it be possible for us to have a situation in future where through some journalist making investigations, it is revealed that NAERSA is allowing investments to be made into something absolutely unconscionable, whether this might be to do with munitions or some organisation connected to child labour or any number of investments of this type? The Minister of the day would then be saying that he or she was not aware of what was happening, had no remit because the decisions made were very much ones for NAERSA and the organisations with which it has contracted and consequently had no role in that regard. I do not think that is the outcome the Minister wants to see or any of us want to see either. All this is predicated on assuming the best possible investment is made to ensure that people's money is safeguarded to the greatest extent possible and this does not happen in instances, very limited ones I would hope, where it is achieved off the back of exploitative or harmful investments.