Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We are here to talk about the National Surplus (Reserve Fund for Exceptional Contingencies) Bill 2018, a name which I will simplify for people outside of this Chamber as a rainy day fund, or as we call it, another bank bailout fund. This Bill will see up to €2 billion transferred from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund into the reserve fund. More worryingly, €500 million will be transferred from tax revenue every year until 2023, totalling €4 billion. The Government spoke about where it can and cannot be used. It states in black and white that the money can be used to remedy exceptional circumstances, to ensure the stability of the financial system and to support major structural reforms. Unfortunately, those three points are all for the banking sector. The only explicit use of the fund in this Bill is to ensure the stability of the financial system and capitalise the banks if they fall on so-called hard times.

The Government and Fianna Fáil advertise this idea of a rainy day fund as a sensible policy to save in the good times and to spend in the bad times. The European fiscal rules do not allow for this and Sinn Féin, from a freedom of information request, showed that the fund cannot be used to increase general spending on health, education or jobs during a downturn, nor can it be used to protect the economy from any Brexit fallout or to mitigate climate change. That sets out fairly clearly that whatever kind of rainy day we will have, these will not fall into that category. This is not a rainy day fund but a contingency reserve fund with an explicit purpose of recapitalising the banks that broke this country not long ago. Following another freedom of information request from the Department of Finance, Sinn Féin received information confirming that the fund would not be used for Brexit or general spending such as on health, welfare or education. This is the second time that we have been told that this money cannot be used to invest in services in the event of a major downturn. The National Surplus (Reserve Fund for Exceptional Contingencies) Bill and the setting up of the reserve fund for exceptional circumstances is an attempt by Fine Gael to cut public investment and an attempt by Fianna Fáil to improve its image after it caused the crash, and to set up a fund to bail out the banks again. This fund is not a rainy day fund as the money stored cannot be used in hard times to support employment or stimulate the economy as a counter-cyclical policy. It is a contingency fund for another bailout for the banks and financial institutions.

The only shock this economy has witnessed in the past decade is a financial crash that was followed by a bailout of the banks. The evidence and options before us can only lead to the conclusion that this fund is designed to recapitalise the banks if they fall on so-called hard times again. Sinn Féin rejects the fund which could see up to €8 billion in taxpayers' money given to the banks.

I have a few questions which I do not expect the Minister of State to answer tonight but I will put them on the record. If the Bill did pass, which I hope it will not, on the back of a number of parliamentary questions, will the residential care capital plan for 2016 to 2021 be affected? If we take €500 million out of the Exchequer each year, there has to be a knock-on effect. Youghal Community Hospital is supposed to have a 38-bed unit by 2021 at a cost of €2.67 million. Is that part of the €500 million that we will lose? In Midleton, County Cork, a 50-bed new community nursing home is supposed to be completed by 2021 at a cost of €10.3 million. Nobody is saying what will be hurt here. It is not rocket science. If one puts €2 billion in additional money into an economy, it stimulates the whole economy with a knock-on effect. Put €2 billion into housing or health and people would get real jobs with real wages, paying real tax, alleviating the housing situation, helping the health system, and be able to afford to take out mortgages. I cannot understand this. The Minister of State can correct me if I am wrong but I think, for the 2017 budget, that one of the submissions from IBEC stated that there were housing and health emergencies and to tell Europe that Ireland would not provide the €2 billion bailout because we needed to spend it here. It is a matter of investing in our people.

My background is in mental health services and they are falling apart. We will be here again tomorrow, discussing child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS. We have been told lies and sold pigs in bags that we cannot see. Some €84 million in additional funding was mentioned last year. It was not €84 million but €35 million. There is the same old spin and it is still about this fabulous little thing that the Government has cooked up, called a rainy day fund. It can be prudent to save and plan for the future but this plan for the future is only for the banks and a bailout. By Jesus, are we going to stand here and let this happen again? I have kids and we will all hopefully have grandchildren. Let us do something right of which we can be proud. Taxes are for investment in our own country. The banks castigated this country, broke families and sent people to the graveyard. We are well aware of it. The Government comes up with some of these fantastic ideas and how it sells them is beyond me. I am trying to get the points across of people outside this Chamber who listen to us and say this will not be spent on health, education, disability, mental health or rural Ireland but is an extra tax to bail out the same gang that has put them in the deepest hellhole that this country has ever witnessed.

People mentioned the moral hazards. It would be a moral hazard if we backed this fund. Everybody paid their tax, then paid it again for the bailout. Every citizen in the country is paying back the bondholders and now the Government wants us to pay as much as €8 billion extra over a number of years. People will get nothing for it but an extra fund so the next generation might not be hit as hard because there is a contingency plan for the bank.

As for services we are supposed to expect, such as those the Government's property tax was supposed to provide, we are getting very few of them because the Government takes that money from us. It is stealing it from us. It just drives me mad.

The tools are already in place to ensure that in the event of banks succumbing to the old mistakes of the past, to put it politely, it is the bank and the shareholders that will have to pick up the bill, not the Irish taxpayers, and that is as it should be. The Government should regulate the banks rather than writing them a cheque, again using taxpayers' money. Instead of setting up a bank bailout fund worth over €4 billion of taxpayers' money, the Government should invest in measures to deal with the greatest threats we face in our economy and society, future-proof our economy and invest in public services, including public housing, health, education - I could go on and on. How is the Government approaching these issues in the Bill, though? It proposes to collect billions of euro of hard-earned taxpayers' money and do nothing with it. It will put the money into a pot and let the banks mind it. It beggars belief.

At the start of my statement I mentioned that €500 million will be transferred from tax revenues every year until 2023. I reiterate that if the Government takes €500 million extra out of the economy instead of putting it in, where there is an action there will be an instant reaction. It will have devastating effects on our crumbling health system and the mental health service, which is not only crumbling but practically non-existent. It will also affect disability services, education, housing, rural transport, broadband and planning for the future energy-wise - the list is endless.

Sometimes people are not in touch with reality. The Taoiseach referred today to the nurses' and midwives' strike. He said he did not want to put an extra burden, a cost, on taxpayers, for the sake of pay equalisation. The Government still sees fit, however, to take an additional €500 million - not €500,000 - out of our crippled services from now until 2023 and stick it into a slush fund for the banks. It will not make money. As I said, the Government should put the €2 billion into the economy. If it does so and invests in the areas where it is falling down, it will have a knock-on effect. This goes back to action and reaction. We could start alleviating the housing problem and get real jobs and real pay. It would go on and the knock-on effect would be endless, but the Government is going to drain the whole system.

I will finish with a very simple point. Sinn Féin will reject the Bill, and the Minister of State should not be surprised by that, but we also want to send it back to the Department of Finance and certainly back to the drawing board. It is one of the most ill-conceived Bills I have ever spoken on in this House since I was elected.

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