Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The kind of things I see it being used for include global recession, which has a significant effect on a very small and open economy; a natural disaster of some kind; some event happening in the financial markets; or as a result of policy choices made here at home that lock us out of access to the financial markets again. I used the example earlier of a disease that affected our economy and has grave consequences for it. I was simply making the point that a Government can invest a lot of money in trying to prevent particular phenomena from happening but those or other phenomena can still happen and there has to be a response. From my experience of being involved in trying to do that, particularly regarding extreme weather events, I think it is a good idea to have a way to access funding like that in a more predictable way than at present. This would help a number of Departments, particularly the Departments of Transport, Tourism and Sport and Housing, Planning and Local Government, to maintain their day-to-day commitments while dealing with the kinds of events that happen every few years to a country despite the best efforts of everybody most of the time. I absolutely envisage contributions extending beyond 2021, otherwise, as Deputy Burton touched on, we would not get the fund up to the critical scale that would enable it to deal with the kind of events to which countries need to respond. As a result, it will need to continue beyond 2021. I do not see us being in a position to take billions of euro out of day-to-day expenditure and put it into this fund because of the pressures the Government faces each day in using tax receipts to fund public services. The more likely sources of that money are one-off gains to the Exchequer, particular tax headings doing exceptionally well for a period, and putting in place an amount of money each year that is genuinely sustainable and which we are confident we can maintain for a number of years. To approach it in any other way would set up expectations that no Government would be able to meet.