Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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The Chairman is very indulgent but if I recall, the Ceann Comhairle was even more indulgent on Second Stage as we had a virtual Committee Stage debate on this point when Deputy Fleming made his contribution. I have given my word on what I intend to do. What we are talking about is the mechanism for doing it. To add it as another beneficiary for good causes is not the way to go. I do not intend it to be a good cause that can be considered. I want it to get a big chunk of the up-front payment. I discussed what I envisage doing with my own departmental Secretary General. The Deputy is correct in saying that I had hoped all of this would be much more in sync, in other words that construction of the national children's hospital would start this year, but obviously the knocking of the original planning permission, the reassessment and the relocation has moved that back. Therefore, it is likely that we will have the accrued money from the sale of this licence available in advance of the requirement to draw it down for this purpose. The reason I mentioned the spectrum licence was that licence sales for money are not an unusual event but that did go to retire part of the national debt and it was part of the budgetary arithmetic and necessary to do that. By Government decision and by agreement with the troika from the outset, this money, by contrast, is not going to be used for that purpose, it is available to invest in the economy. I have always ring-fenced this money, even from other asset sales in terms of the stimulus package where the bulk of it would be used for job creation but eventually some of it would be used to retire debt. All of this money up-front payment, or the bulk of it, will be used to invest in the economy, depending on how much we get because, obviously, I am speaking in the abstract until I see the actual sum used to invest in the national children's hospital. It will be in some form of a ring-fenced account, the exact nature of which is being worked out. It will, I hope, be used to acquire some interest payments until it is required to be drawn down and used to build the national children's hospital.