John Gilroy (Labour)

No one in the Chamber would disagree with the necessity for a stimulus package for the economy. I agree with Senator Darragh O'Brien and I like his thinking in this regard. It would be both good and innovative to invest a limited amount of Irish pension funds, which at present are valued at €77 billion, in infrastructural projects. The State is the only agency that can capture the value of infrastructure investment and the Labour Party is greatly in favour of a stimulus package. Members will recall that a few weeks ago, Labour Party Senators proposed investing or incentivising the pension industry to invest in seed funding for businesses with particular regard to risk capital. An investment of 0.01% of the entire pension fund would achieve a fund of approximately €70 million, while an investment of 5% would yield approximately €350 million, which would be very welcome.

That said, ways to incentivise the industry must be found because the idea of compelling the industry is neither legal nor desirable. Most prudent economic commentators probably would agree with me on this point because the entire theory underpinning the provision of pensions concerns risk diversification across sectors and across geography. It is a good job that this is the theory because one can imagine what would have happened, for instance, had Ireland's pension funds trustees decided to invest in the banking industry by investing in Anglo Irish Bank or similar institutions in previous years. In common with most things Sinn Féin does, its amendment looks highly attractive at first glance. However, when one gets into its detail, one finds a little more complexity is involved. Consequently, I am not in favour of the amendment but I would certainly encourage the Minister to find a mechanism by which one could incentivise the pension industry to invest more in Irish infrastructure.