Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will focus on amendment No. 19, but I also wish to refer to the issue of reporting on regional development. The Government's amendment is welcome. I would have liked the Government to go further with regard to what Deputy Deasy suggested. It is one thing to report but another to act. However, at least it gives those who wish to see balanced regional development the tools to argue the case.

Investment in the Border, midland and west, BMW, region is a case in point. There were commitments by the previous Government to invest a certain amount in greenfield sites outside Dublin and Cork, and that was reported on an annual basis in the annual report, as is suggested under this amendment. Time and again one saw that the commitments or targets laid down were never reached. It was great to have the report so one could be informed that the Government was failing to reach the targets for foreign direct investment in greenfield sites. What would have been better - in this regard, it is a pity that it appears the earlier amendments will not be accepted - is a commitment to balanced regional development, not just a report on it. However, I welcome the fact that in the annual report we will be told how well or how unsuccessfully, as the case may be, balanced regional development is affected by this fund.

There is another welcome aspect to this. "Balanced regional development" has disappeared from the dictionary, in my view. I see that time and again in Donegal. We see increases in job numbers but that does not filter through to counties such as Donegal. Much of the focus is on getting the State going, but not on looking at the impact and whether it is flowing to the regions. That is important. While we must get the country going again, and it is important that an overall net number of jobs is created and that there is investment and so forth, it is equally important that there is a balance between the regions. The Government must refocus its energy on that. For that reason, I welcome the Government's amendment. However, talk is cheap. We must walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

Amendment No. 19 seeks to delete a number of provisions in the Bill. Section 42 deals with directions to make certain investments. This is one of the most worrying areas in this legislation. The Government is providing itself with the ability to use the moneys in the National Pensions Reserve Fund which will be available to the agency and to direct the agency to invest those funds in two situations. This is where the earlier discussion on the amendments tabled by Deputies Coppinger and Higgins comes into play. There is no clear ability within the legislation for the Minister to say, with regard to the environment, housing, water or any such important issue, that he or she wishes to use the State's resources in the National Pensions Reserve Fund to invest in these vital areas. The only areas in which that is allowed are as a remedy to a serious disturbance in the economy of the State - while we would argue that social housing is a disturbance in the economy, I do not imagine that is the intention of the Government - or to prevent serious damage to a financial institution in the State and to ensure the continued stability of that system. It goes on to provide that for either or both of those purposes, the Minister may give directions to the agency to invest assets of the fund in specified securities of a credit institution or to underwrite or otherwise support the issue of any kind of securities of a credit institution. The provision is very clear. They are the two things that can happen for either of the above occurrences.

When we refer to a serious disturbance in the economy, I do not think it is a reference to 100,000 families on the housing lists, people having to live in their cars on the streets or, indeed, the growing number of people who are homeless. It is more than likely referring to credit institutions again. This is what scares the bejesus out of me - that this Government will do exactly what the previous Government did in-----

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