Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Cabinet EU committee will primarily deal with the EU Council issues and EU issues more generally. There is a separate Brexit and Northern Ireland committee. We met before the latest EU Council meeting, which was successful. From the Irish perspective, we took a very honest broker approach, believing it was important that the EU worked in a collective fashion to borrow money to assist Europe's recovery and particular member states who will be in greater difficulty than others because of their fiscal and economic capacity and environment.

There was a fairly strong and robust debate on that initiative around the amount that would be allocated in grants and loans and the division between the two. Eventually, a compromise was arrived at - €390 billion in grants and €360 billion in loans. Ireland was always clear that we were going to be a net contributor. The Union published material in advance that suggested that between now and 2058, we would have to repay billions of euro. That has since been revisited. Rather than providing speculative figures today, I will come back to the Deputy with detailed figures as best as we can get them on repayments over that length of time.

There are various estimates as to whether the figure will be €1.3 billion or €1.5 billion for Ireland. Ireland could do better in those areas where we do not get a direct proportionate allocation but there are various competitions for funds. Over recent years, we did well in the Horizon 2020 fund or the research funds where we competed with colleges, SMEs and businesses. As the Minister at the time, I was involved in setting up Enterprise Ireland to have a lead Irish person to co-ordinate everybody to go after funding under research and it worked. Our levels of funding went up. There are quite a number of other funds that we should be competing more practically for, over and above what we might get in the form of grants.

In respect of loans, we are entitled to borrow from this fund, but the Ministers for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform have been in touch with the NTMA and others. We are borrowing at very low rates at the moment. That is a decision that will be made technically and we will take technical advice on the optimal route to borrow. Nonetheless, there will be a facility there for us. We have to now prepare a plan for the recovery and resilience fund, and we are doing that. The Cabinet economic committee will assess that.

The Departments of Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform are centre stage in the submission that will be made to Brussels. It will have to be in line with the key themes that have been published, including the green and digital strands of the recovery plan that has been published at a European level. The responses of member states have to reflect the published objectives. That dovetails quite neatly with the programme for Government's commitment on the environment and climate change. I do not have any doubts about our capacity to have a robust plan to submit to the Commission to get the maximum funding to which we would be entitled.

A formula was devised at the Council, which was revised following the negotiations and discussions. Significant funding will be front-loaded in respect of criteria relating to the pre-Covid position of the various economies. The agreement was amended so that consideration will be given to the impact of Covid from 2022 onwards on unemployment levels and the economies of all member states. That was agreed to try to give a greater equilibrium in the allocation of resources to member states across the board. I can get the Deputy more detailed documentation on that and will forward it to her.

I want to take this opportunity to wish the new Commissioner, Ms Mairead McGuinness MEP, every success. She has a very important portfolio. Throughout this, I have had the best of relations with the President of the Commission and they have not been harmed in any way. We have had, and will continue to have, good, constructive engagement on a range of issues. The portfolio that Ms Mairead McGuinness MEP has received reflects the continuing good relationship between Ireland and the Commission, contrary to what people were speculating on. I also want to pay tribute to the former Commissioner, Phil Hogan, who gave distinguished service to the country in his roles as agriculture and trade Commissioner.

On the insurance issue, I believe Europe has a stronger role to play in liberalising the industry and creating greater competition so that consumers can benefit from such competition. The Government will establish a special sub-committee of the economic committee to deal specifically with the insurance issue, which will bring in different Departments and make sure there is a cross-cutting departmental approach to tackling the costs of insurance to reduce the negative impact on businesses, enterprises and people more generally in their daily lives.

I will check out the process of ratification of the Lanzarote Convention.

In respect of the survivors of primary school sexual abuse, the Department of Education and Skills is currently undergoing a comprehensive review, which the Minister and I are awaiting. I raised this issue at a very high profile level and fought for those affected for quite some time. I got results for some, including raising the profile of the issue. The Iarfhlaith O'Neill report yielded results for some, but not all, victims. The Deputy mentioned a remaining issue in respect of the Creagh Lane survivors. I will contain to pursue the issue. We await the outcome of the review the Department of Education and Skills is currently carrying out following the outcome of Iarfhlaith O'Neill's report.

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