Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to begin by expressing my own condolences and those of my party to the family and friends of the late Emma Mhic Mhathúna on this, the day of her funeral.

Yesterday the Minister for Finance and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform formally advanced the proposed rainy day fund. There are still many unanswered questions about the fund, and not for want of asking. The Government has simply failed to provide the answers. Let us recap. The Government wants to take €1.5 billion from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, which is essentially our national reserve fund. It wishes to put this money into a new national reserve fund to be called, as a gesture of prudence, the rainy day fund. Is this not just relabelling? What is wrong, in the Taoiseach's opinion, with the existing strategic fund? What would the difference be between this new rainy day fund and the strategic reserve fund we have? The Government wants to place a further €500 million from tax revenues in this new rainy day fund. Why is the Government really setting this up? Is it to be a new fund to bail out the banks in the case of another banking collapse? What is the fund intended to do? This is a specific question. Is it to be a reserve fund to be deployed if we have another collapse in, say, tax income - for example, if the corporate tax base collapses? If that is its objective, how does this fit in with the fiscal rules, which, as the Taoiseach knows, are procyclical and do not allow for countercyclical funding? I have read with some care the design of the rainy day fund as published, the working paper. Its conclusion is quite simple, that is, that the fiscal rules need to be changed in order to do that much. What is the intention of the fund then? Where will the money be invested? Will it be invested in the same ways as the strategic investment fund? Why can the Government not just leave the €2 billion, if it so wishes, in the strategic investment fund? If not, who will manage it? What is the cost of managing a separate fund? Does the Government intend to invest it overseas or in the domestic economy? This money should be allocated to build affordable housing that could actually generate income back to the State over 20 or 30 years. This would allow us to invest in a great deal of houses. The rainy day is now for so many people seeking affordable housing. The notion that we have money to set aside idly when 10,000 people are homeless is simply bad policy. I ask the Taoiseach to set out in very clear terms straightforward answers to these questions.

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