Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to contribute to this debate. I do not have any difficulty with the motion in front of us. It would not make sense in the present exceptional circumstances to allocate €500 million to a rainy day fund but it has not made a lot of sense up to now either. Deputy Richmond said that any sensible household puts money away in a rainy day fund but you do not do that when there is a hole in the roof and you need to replace the roof. Essentially for several years now there has been the equivalent of a hole in the roof, whether that is the health crisis, in terms of the capacity of our health service, the housing crisis or many other aspects of the dysfunction within our country. It is not the case that everyone was in favour of this from the beginning.

I notice the Minister of State did not speak at all about his thinking or the Government's thinking about the future of the rainy day fund and what the intention is. To have such a fund is very well where a country has sorted out its public services and its economy is in a very healthy state and its people are all doing well and prospering. In circumstances like that, where there is a surplus, it makes sense but we have not been in that position in this country and it is hard to see us being in that position for the foreseeable future. That is not only as a result of the exceptional circumstances that we are in now. Obviously, the big issue now is the hugely negative impact of Covid on the country and that is the immediate reason for not proceeding with the allocation of €500 million, but we have to ask what questions have been learned from Covid.

I echo the Minister of State’s comments on what has happened in this country over the last two years in terms of the huge level of personal family tragedies and the very significant number of people who have passed away. I echo the condolences to them. There have been more than 500,000 cases now. We think of all those whose lives have been damaged in so many ways. We recognise the huge efforts that have been made by everyone working within the health service, and by those in other front-line jobs in areas such as retail, deliveries and in so many other areas of our society. We think of all those who kept things going, who kept the show on the road, sometimes at huge cost to themselves. It is important to acknowledge that.

However, it is also important to acknowledge the fact that the experience of Covid over almost two years has shown up huge weaknesses in the way we run our country and the Government’s approach to the economy generally and the neglect of so many aspects of our public services right across the board. Some of us have been committed to proper levels of investment in public services throughout our political careers. You have to ask what lessons this Government has learned by the very substantial weaknesses in things such as capacity within our health service, our dysfunctional housing system, the dysfunctional childcare system and the way in which we fund, or under-fund, all levels of our education system. What lessons have been learned? It was very clear that if the country was to survive at all over the last two years that there had to be very significant intervention by the Government in taking over the use of private hospitals, for example, or taking on the payment of salaries for childcare workers. All these things were exposed as being dysfunctional in an emergency situation. There seems to be an attitude that when we get over all of this, we will go back to the old ways of doing things. Clearly that is not sustainable. I would be much more reassured if I heard the Minister of State and other Ministers speak of the lessons that have been learned.

The figure of €500 million is coincidentally the same figure as the Government decided to spend on tax cuts, which are in the main regressive cuts in the recent budget and which was not a very wise way of spending money. I support the motion but let us hear about the lessons that have been learned over the last couple of years.

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