Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

While it is very important to listen to my colleagues, including the Minister for Justice, the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and other Ministers, outline the spending priorities of today, I will speak about the future, and the future Ireland fund that will be established as part of this budget. It probably generated the fewest headlines but it is one of the most significant things that will be done by the Government and the House in legislation to come. It was agreed and brought to the House yesterday. The future Ireland fund will take €4 billion of what is currently known as the rainy day fund and 0.8% of GDP every year thereafter. If the Government, the following Government and the one after just have the discipline not to touch it and leave it until 2035, Department of Finance officials anticipate that it will reach, through compound interest and good investment, €100 billion by 2035. If we can create a sovereign wealth fund of that scale and size, future Governments beyond 2035 will be in the very fortunate position to be able to take the piece off the top and use that for current spending.

I imagine the Ireland of 2035, with the resilience and sustainability in its public finances that comes with the existence of a fund like that, with access to the returns of it every year, the discretion to be able to spend that and the resilience that brings. We want to ensure that we can develop a fund way beyond that like Norway, which does not need to borrow and which has a fund that is so strong at this point that it will always provide sustainability for the country. I imagine, at the same time, us having brought commercially-based floating wind turbines to the west coast and the 800,000 sq. km that are there. We are the fifth largest country in the EU, including our maritime area. I imagine Ireland being able to generate electricity not just for this island but for a great part of Europe, being able to convert it to hydrogen in the Atlantic Ocean and combine that with our extraordinarily strong aircraft leasing that is looking to develop sustainable aviation fuel out of this State. I imagine the marriage of those two things happening by 2035.

This is a hugely significant decision by the Government. It is the very essence of not electioneering. It is the very essence of prudent, sustainable management not just of the public finances to date but of really planning. If there is any young person watching this debate tonight or interpreting the budget and what it means for them for the future, this fund is by far the most significant thing that has been brought to this House for some many years. We could never have imagined being in this position ten, 20 or 30 years ago. We are a small open economy that is susceptible to the shocks of the world and we have to provide for ourselves. We have to provide a resilience in our economy for the future and this fund does that if we can all just be disciplined enough not to touch it.

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