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

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion. I have to put it on the record that when this rainy day fund was first announced and we were on the opposite side of the House, we were not in agreement with it because it was more of a rainy day fund for the banks rather than health, infrastructure or housing. However, it is amazing how matters have changed in less than 12 months.

I listened to many Deputies who spoke in the debate. In terms of the Minister's contribution, I commend him on how this time, he has taken on board the issues of all the Irish people. Towards the end of his contribution, he stated "Similar to returns to the Exchequer from the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, using the rainy day fund meant the State has been able to provide for additional and much-needed support during this time without having to borrow more, thereby reducing the burden of repayment or refinancing costs on future generations." That is an important sentence because we know what happened with the bank bailouts a number of years ago. It is us, all the people of the island, who are suffering.

I want to throw around a new idea because this is a worldwide pandemic and we are all in it together. I am veering slightly from the motion but has anybody ever mentioned a European or a world debt write-down on this because we are all in it together? We have to acknowledge the fact that this is a great deal of money. The gross spending for 2020 that was voted on was approximately €70 billion. As that has now increased to approximately €86.5 billion, there will be much flipping and flopping with the figures on the Minister's side to try to balance those books.

To get back to the reserve fund, all of us seem to agree on it and are supporting it in the House. However, I believe the reserve fund needs to be re-examined and tweaked, whether by way of amendments or whatever, to ensure that it will be a specific emergency fund. We should be putting money into it for when an emergency arises in health, housing or whatever. There are other ways of being prudent. Some people might say that the Minister got lucky with the way this fell but I do not believe that is the best way to describe it.

We welcome the fact that this fund lessens the burden on the people of this country. We welcome the fact also that we have come to an agreement in the House and shown that things can be done without having to shout across the floor at one another and that we can communicate with one another because all of us were elected here to work for the people we represent. However, when this pandemic is over, I urge the Minister to look at this rainy day fund again because we have to have two choices. We must acknowledge that even before this rainy day fund was set up, we had, and still have, emergencies in housing, health and across many other structures, whether it is mental health, infrastructure, jobs or issues with schools. If we can come into this House and agree on measures now and plan for the future, even on this specific fund, I believe we will be here again saying that we will agree on that.

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