Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Thank you for the opportunity to make a contribution this afternoon. Sinn Féin has consistently called for corporation tax receipts to be used with caution, having a mind to their potential volatility. For this reason we have said that such tax receipts should not be committed to recurring, day-to-day expenditure. Additionally, we have advocated for the need to grow our indigenous and exporting sector in order to diversify our economy and limit the exposure to dilute the State's economic concentration and reduce associated risks. The establishment of the future Ireland fund and the infrastructure, climate and nature fund has been proposed as a means of siphoning off a percentage of these receipts which are potentially volatile and windfall in nature. The general idea behind such a measure is welcome. The aim of these funds is to help to deal with future infrastructure challenges such as an ageing population, climate action, digitalisation and other fiscal and economic issues. Nevertheless, the reality of the situation is that these funds are being pursued at a time when the State is struggling from an infrastructure deficit. This deficit is particularly acute, as we all know, in housing. There is also an infrastructure crisis in terms of energy and water. The scale of this crisis is damaging our international competitiveness and threatening our ability to attract FDI. As a result, it beggars belief that capital projects for water and electricity infrastructure are not being prioritised by the Government.

In the face of the loss of our corporation tax advantage, Ireland's ability to compete in a changing world economy has been hindered by a failure to deliver the right set of enabling conditions. Government failure to address issues such as energy costs, sustainable energy supply, renewable energy provision, housing infrastructure, water and other utilities is damaging our capacity in the race for the next generation of FDI. Compounding these failures is the threat posed by more active industrial policies from some competitor states. Additionally, the Government is failing in terms of investment in research, development and innovation, RDI, where we are drifting in the wrong direction on all the main international scorecards. There is a necessity to invest in capital projects which support RDI so we can assure the FDI of the future. While we remain supportive of the establishment of a sovereign wealth fund to protect the public finances and to boost the capacity of the State to address challenges in the future, there are also significant challenges in the here and now, especially infrastructure challenges which threaten our economy. Today I had a large number of meetings, as I am sure the Minister did. I met with two groups in particular, representatives from the trade union movement and representatives from a global multinational corporation. Each of them, for different reasons but basically with the same motivation, raised the issue of housing. This global multinational corporation has a substantial footprint in Ireland and it raised the issue of housing. There is an infrastructure crisis now that requires investment and a change of direction from this Government.

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