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

I am not even going to look for another adjective. It scares me that the Government would do what the previous Government did in 2009, which is to deplete the resources in the National Pensions Reserve Fund and invest them in broken banks. If one looks at the percentage returns the National Pensions Reserve Fund was securing for its investments, they were quite healthy at 6%, if memory serves. However, that €21 billion was whittled down to today's figure of €6.9 billion, because the Minister decided to direct investments into broken banks. While this started with the Fianna Fáil Government, this Government finished the job and finished it spectacularly by using most of those resources to pump into AIB and Bank of Ireland.

Why would we put a provision like this in legislation? There is money available to the fund and it is clear that this is about trying to refocus that money on investments in Ireland that will get the country's economy back up and running, but the only way a Minister can interfere with the running of that fund or direct where that fund should be spent is in respect of broken banks or some other type of financial institution. That is simply wrong. This refers back to what I said earlier and yesterday. By using that mechanism in this legislation and because it is a direction and not an order, it does not necessarily mean that it must be approved by the Houses of the Oireachtas. This is one of the reasons that this legislation is deeply flawed.

Nobody in this House, although other Members might challenge this, has demanded that this legislation be brought before the House as many times as I have demanded it. This legislation was originally announced in August 2011 in respect of the ability to refocus the National Pensions Reserve Fund on investments in our economy instead of in economies across the globe. Time and again we have asked about the legislation. However, what the Government has decided to do - with a number of good legislative measures, it must be said - is to include other provisions with it. It includes this provision, originally introduced by Fianna Fáil, which allows it to whittle away this resource if a banker comes knocking at the Government's door again, saying, "We are in trouble. We messed up again. We need your resources, or the ATMs will not work," whereupon the Minister will sign the order or direction and tell the agency to put all its plans on hold as €2 billion or €3 billion must be put into the institution.

That is simply bad policy and bad politics. It is what got us into this mess in the first place, and we should not be looking at it again.

The Minister of State has also attached other sections to the Bill which have damaged it, particularly the whole issue of NewERA and the mechanism that allows for easier privatisation of State assets. This section of the Bill is simply not on and it should be deleted. While the provision may exist in statute already as a result of the 2009 amendment by the then Government, that does not mean it should be continued. It should be discontinued. The money Irish citizens put into the National Pensions Reserve Fund should be invested for the good of the Irish economy, not for any other reason.

The Government should be big enough and bold enough to do this. We were told three years ago that there was a revolution and that there was a new way of doing politics. The Government should stand up today and say that the old way is finished and that it will not allow itself in legislation the ability to whittle away people's hard-earned money that rests in the National Pensions Reserve Fund and put it into broken banks. It should say that it will end that provision in the law introduced by Fianna Fáil because it wants to make sure the people's money is invested to build our country again, not invested in broken banks and in bailing out the bankers and developers of the future.

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