Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion this evening. This rainy day fund is a tool developed by the Government to act as a buffer against fiscal shocks. In general, these funds are used to set aside money during good economic times to support the economy during downturns. I accept that there are uncertain times ahead following the UK elections and the backing the electorate gave to Boris Johnson to go ahead with Brexit. However, the decision not to continue to pay into this fund and to use the UK's withdrawal from Europe is another example of this Government backing away from its legal obligations.

I have lost trust in the Government to provide adequately for all the people of Ireland in a fair and equal manner. We see homeless children seated on cardboard eating on our streets, elderly people lying in corridors in hospitals, our roads turning into dirt tracks and the families of disabled people left to fend for themselves. Our farmers and fishermen are still reeling from the storms and fodder crisis of 2018. At that time, I called on the Minister to put in place an emergency fund to help with the crisis but the Government dragged its heels on this too. Fishermen along the west Cork coast suffered badly from the massive storms leading to their lobster pots and other fishing gear being destroyed. I asked for an aid package to help our fishermen to deal with these losses and again my pleas were all but ignored. This is an example of when the Government should have been proactive in engaging with farmers and fishermen offering aid packages and using the rainy day fund. If we have no funds available to help these groups of people in a crisis and no money to pay the prescribed amount into the reserve fund, where is the money going? Is this because there is still an open cheque on the table for the national children's hospital, with no accountability for those funds? With the national broadband plan on the horizon, is the Government providing the contractors involved with the same level of access to extra funding with no accountability, while we have people crying out for some sort of reassurance that things will get better?

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