Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The primary purpose of the National Surplus (Reserve Fund for Exceptional Contingencies) Bill 2018 is to provide the legislative basis for the establishment of a rainy day fund to be formally known as the National Surplus (Exceptional Contingencies) Reserve Fund. In principle, the Act is fine. It is sensible and prudent. I also accept that this represents an institutional reform in Ireland's fiscal policy framework and that it is a Bill whose primary purpose is to mitigate severe economic shocks. However, I am concerned about some issues raised by the regulatory impact analysis of the Bill. For instance, the fund was seeded by an initial transfer of cash or near cash assets from the ISIF of up to a maximum of €2 billion, with further Exchequer transfers of €500 million per annum due from 2019 to 2023, inclusive. Provision is also made for periodic transfers from the Exchequer, thankfully subject to Dáil approval, where, for example, there are above expectation tax receipts. People have a serious difficulty with this provision. Most people would probably prefer to have above expectation tax receipts used to improve service infrastructure such as schools and roads, address the health crisis and, in particular, build houses or fund any number of other projects that require cash injections, of which there are many.

We need to be very clear that there is flexibility in this matter and that an automatic transfer of tax to the fund would not occur. We need far more clarity and clear guarantees on the specified purposes of this fund. We do not want it to operate as a kind of mini-bailout facility for any Government plans that go astray. I am thinking here of the national disgrace that is the national children's hospital. The project is a runaway train and Professor Anthony Staines has described the disastrous oversight of it as awe inspiring incompetence. It has created not just a rainy day but a thunderstorm of financial embarrassment, if the Minister was capable of embarrassment. He will be embarrassed shortly when the people get a chance to embarrass him and have its verdict on him. What assurance can we get that the fund would not be raided by Government to try to cover the losses of disastrous decisions such as that?

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