Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 22 November 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion

Mr. Nick Ashmore:

I do not recall the projections. We conducted an exercise earlier this year, a very quick calculation, to see what we thought it might have reached if we had been able to retain the funds in the NPRF. In 2008 the fund took a serious hit in the markets, like every investor. The worst thing is that a liquidator fund, when it has just taken a hit, does not recover. If, prior to that withdrawal, we had kept the assets that were in the fund at that point, without additional contributions, and if we had just earned the average return on Irish pension funds to now, we would think it would have been about €45 billion.