Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I have heard the Minister for Finance speak about the future Ireland fund and say that he hopes it will have accumulated up to €100 billion in assets by 2035. Obviously, we often talk about big numbers in this place and they can lose a sense of meaning. When you consider it, though, €100 billion is a phenomenal amount of money. It could make a real difference to people's lives if it is invested when we have it. All of this is predicated on the idea that there may be a rainy day at some point in the future and that we have to be prepared for it. This ignores the reality that it is pouring now for people in terms of the ongoing crises relating to housing, health, education, climate action and biodiversity. That €100 billion could go a long way towards resolving those crises.

We could set up a State construction company. We could directly build hundreds of thousands of social and genuinely affordable homes. Forget about all this messing around with the help-to-buy scheme, with incentivising landlords and with incentivising developers, there could be a State construction company to build homes directly. We could guarantee a home for everyone on the housing list. We could actually get every single adult out of their parents’ boxroom and into a home of their own. Despite what the Taoiseach said, we do not need to move mountains to do that. The State just needs to spend the money it already has on directly building universal public housing.

In addition, we could retrofit every home that needs it and thereby reduce energy usage significantly and save people a great deal of money on their bills. We could end the use of prefabs in our schools. We could build every new school building and classroom that is needed. We could fund new metro systems, Luas lines in every city and invest in a real all-island rail network. We could build State-owned onshore and offshore wind farms to help us convert to 100% renewable electricity.

Instead of doing any of that, the Government is proposing to salt away the €100 billion in unspecified investments, subject only to maximising financial return, until 2041. It should be clear to people that there is no requirement for any of this money to be invested here in this country. Therefore, there can be zero return to the economy or to the people in this country between now and 2041 when the Government is to be allowed to start spending money from the future Ireland fund.

The NTMA is to manage the €100 billion fund in much the same way as NAMA managed its billions of euro in assets, not for any socially useful purpose but for maximum financial return. If the Minister remembers, it was in the name of maximising financial return that NAMA sold off thousands of apartments and vast tracts of development land to vulture funds, built loads of useless office blocks and sowed the seeds of the housing and homelessness crisis. The way this Bill is drafted perpetuates that same narrow neoliberal mindset of maximising financial return over all other considerations. Like the Act under which NAMA was set up, it gestures towards wider social considerations but then subordinates all that to maximising financial return.

7 o’clock

Section 6(2) of the Bill states that the NTMA in its management of the future Ireland fund is to "have regard to" "environmental, social and governance" risks only to the extent that they are "relevant" to securing optimal total financial return. In other words, unless environmental, social and governance considerations also affect the bottom line, they do not matter.

Even when the magic year of 2041 finally arrives and the State is finally to be allowed to spend this money, there is nothing in this Bill to specify what the future Ireland fund is to be spent on. There is no mention of capital investment or pensions, even though that is how the Minister is selling this fund in the media. All it says is that the money can be drawn down by the Exchequer. There is no guidance on how it will be spent or on what it should not be spent. There is no guidance in the legislation saying it will not simply be used to bail out the banks and bondholders again.

The same is true for the vast majority of the second fund set up by this Bill. The infrastructure, climate and nature fund is to amount to €14 billion but only a maximum of €3.15 billion of it can be spent on environmental projects. The other €9 billion can only be drawn down if there is a significant economic or fiscal deterioration for the State, in which case the €3.15 billion for environmental projects can also be diverted away from those environmental projects. Despite the name, there is no guarantee in this Bill that any money from the fund will be spent on environmental projects. The only guarantee in the Bill is that the limited environmental dimension of the fund will end in 2030. Does the Government think that the climate and biodiversity crisis will be over by 2030? Is the plan to simply throw in the towel when we reach 2030? Just the other day, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, was telling us how we are only "getting warmed up". Unfortunately, that is tragically true.

The Minister for Finance is selling the same line about the infrastructure, climate and nature fund as he is about the future Ireland fund, which is that it will provide funds for countercyclical capital investment if there is a downturn. In reality, there is nothing in the Bill that even hints at the other €9 billion being used for capital investment. Again, all it says is that the money can be withdrawn if there is a significant economic or fiscal deterioration. We all know what happened the last time Fianna Fáil and the Greens had billions of euro in State funds when there was a downturn. They had a National Pensions Reserve Fund worth €21 billion in 2007 that they said was for future old age pensions and they promised it would not be touched until 2025. However, when the property bubble burst in 2008, they used it to bail out the banks. There is nothing in this Bill to stop the same thing happening with the €100 billion in the future Ireland fund or the €14 billion in the infrastructure, climate and nature fund.

We are currently in the middle of a commercial property crash, with investors handing back the keys to office developments. Are we going to see the Minister back in here saying that the private pension funds that invested in these office blocks have to be bailed out or will we be told we need to compensate investors in stranded fossil fuel assets? Will we be told that we need the money to pay massive multibillion euro fines for failure to meet our climate obligations? All of that is possible with this Bill. People should not believe the Minister when he tells us not to worry and that it will not happen.

On an unrelated issue, we saw when Simon Harris became leader of Fine Gael there was a signal that people need not worry about the sick-pay legislation that the Government passed because it would row back on that. I raised it at the time. I asked why it was not in the legislation and why it was not guaranteed. I asked why it is left up to a Minister to decide. I was told not to worry and that of course the Government would do all of those things. Now, because it is politically expedient, it seems the Government will bow to pressure from businesses and attempt to withdraw from that. The same applies to this Bill. This can be a massive bailout fund. What is not possible is that any of the planned €100 billion in the future Ireland fund can be directed towards anything socially or environmentally useful for the next 17 years. The next time a person who is sitting waiting for hours in an overcrowded A&E department, stuck in a traffic jam unable to access decent public transport, or living in their parents' box room, they should remember that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens have the money to change all of that but they just choose not to do it. They have the money to fix the health service, to end congestion by investing in free, frequent public transport and to guarantee everybody in this country a forever home of their own but they choose not to do it.

The people of Ireland have a choice too. We can kick Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens out at the next election. We can break the cycle of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, of boom and bust, of poverty amid plenty, of immense profits on the one hand for those at the top and struggle for so many people in this country that encapsulates the nature of the capitalist system. We can build people-power movements for housing for all, healthcare for all, education and free public transport for all and we can vote for a real left government that takes on the landlords, the bosses and the big polluters and fights for ecosocialist change that says we are going to use the money and the resources that we have to invest in society to address the crises, as opposed to putting it away to bail out the rich at some later point down the line.

See this speech in context