Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 3:

To delete all words after “Dáil Éireann” and substitute the following:

“believes that, in order to tackle infrastructural bottlenecks and make up for historical underinvestment, much greater investment in public services is required, including more capital investment than the €2.65 billion envisaged in the Capital Plan;

notes that the Irish national debt-to-Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio continues to fall at a rapid pace and that the costs of servicing the national debt have consistently been declining;

is concerned that the Government’s debt-to-GDP target of 45 per cent, significantly below the Stability and Growth Pact target of 60 per cent, and its commitment to establishing a €1 billion per year rainy-day fund from 2019 are unnecessary obstacles to tackling our significant public investment deficit;

further notes that the State’s long established rainy-day fund, the Irish Strategic Investment Fund, has a discretionary portfolio of €8.1 billion and a directed portfolio valued at €12.6 billion, consisting of State shareholdings in Allied Irish Banks (AIB) and Bank of Ireland that were paid for out of the National Pension Reserve Fund;

asserts that the European Union (EU) Stability and Growth Pact and fiscal rules currently prevent appropriate levels of investment and should be amended in order to facilitate a much needed increase in capital spending;

in the circumstances, believes that the sale of shareholdings in AIB and Bank of Ireland should not proceed; and

calls on the Government to stop the sale of AIB shares and to negotiate with the EU authorities to change the fiscal rules, to permit enhanced spending on public services, including capital spending, rather than selling off State assets to fund this, or worse still, simply to pay down debt.”

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