Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----we have the legislation. Obviously, the legislation will have to be put in place before we put any money into the fund, so the Deputy will have ample opportunity to examine it when we have the primary legislation. The concept, though, I can explain. It is to take €1.5 billion currently in ISIF, use it to establish the rainy day fund and add €500 million to it from tax revenues every year. We are identifying corporate tax revenues, corporate profit tax, in particular as the source of that €500 million. We have a concern that corporate tax revenues are unusually buoyant and may not be there next year or the year after, and we do not want to repeat the mistakes of the past. Ten, 12, or 13 years ago, the country was run on stamp duty and VAT receipts from a booming property sector. When that sector collapsed, there was a massive hole in our budget, as a result of which we had years of austerity. What I want to do is set up the country in order that that never happens again. We will therefore have a rainy day fund-----

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