Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin opposes this Bill. We do so not because we are against the idea of saving up responsibly to invest in the future.

In many ways, the Title of this Bill is misleading. Most people understand a rainy-day fund to be a mechanism to allow for investment whenever the economy begins to slow down, but this Bill calls for vast sums to be put aside now, and yet has limited criteria as to when and why it can be drawn down. Ask most people what the major issues we face are and they will say they are housing, healthcare provision, climate change and the cost of living. Nothing in the legislation before us allows funds to be drawn down to address any of those problems.

The National Surplus (Reserve Fund for Exceptional Contingencies) Bill 2018 will see up to €2.5 billion of citizens' money transferred to the Government's reserve fund. The only purpose of this fund, according to the legislation itself and its operation with the fiscal rules, is for money to be drawn down in order to spend in the event of a natural disaster or to provide liquidity to the banking sector.As the Parliamentary Budget Office has noted, the best policy for responding to natural disasters such as flooding is to mitigate risk by investing in preventive measures such as flood defence and relief schemes, thereby reducing the likelihood and scale of damage caused by natural disasters such as flooding. Despite this, the Government has cut capital funding in flood risk management for 2019 by €3 million.

The other explicit purpose of the reserve fund is to provide money for the banks. The evidence and options before us, and the provisions of the National Surplus (Reserve Fund for Exceptional Contingencies) Bill 2018, lead only to the conclusion that the reserve fund is designed to recapitalise the banks if they repeat the reckless behaviour of the past. The tools should be in place and strengthened Europe-wide to ensure that the sovereign is separate from the banking industry and that it is the shareholders, not the citizen taxpayers, who foot the bill for banking crises, and pay to sustain their solvency.

Sinn Féin rejects any fund that could see up to €8 billion of taxpayers’ money wasted to provide assurance to the banking industry should it want another bailout. The National Surplus (Reserve Fund for Exceptional Contingencies) Bill 2018 should be radically changed or swiftly rejected. In its current form, the Bill designs a reserve fund that cannot deal with the challenges that will face our society in a future downturn. Instead of investing resources in infrastructure, housing, green technologies and jobs for the future, it diverts resources into a fund that will only be used to recapitalise the banks. Instead of wasting resources in this way, Sinn Féin has brought forward a number of proposals that will future proof our economy and invest in the future, while mitigating the risks posed by Brexit and climate change.

Sinn Féin would establish a €2 billion Brexit stabilisation fund to support businesses and communities most exposed to Brexit as a result of disruptions to North-South and east-west trade. The fund would be resourced with €500 million of Government revenue annually in 2019 and 2020, in addition to utilising €1 billion from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF. This fund would then be deployed to boost capital investment in affected regions, to provide localised assistance for exporters in the agrifood sector, and to form investment partnerships with local councils to invest in the regeneration of towns and communities. Sinn Féin would increase the levels of investment provided for in the national development plan allocation for housing in the period 2019 to 2023, significantly increasing supply. Sinn Féin has also advocated an increase of €1 billion in capital investment for 2019 in our alternative budget. We need to increase capital investment across Departments for transport, housing, education, health, communications, environment and climate action, and dramatically increase the resources allocated under the national development plan in the period 2019 to 2023.

To respond to uncertainty in the times ahead, investment is required in our infrastructure, in the skills and education of our people, in housing and in developing a secure and stable economic base upon which our country can rely in the future. I put it to the Minister of State that we believe this would be a much better way to put funding away. We are very concerned. Perhaps the Minister of State could say something that would reassure me that we are not putting away this money to be used, again, to bail out the banks. The Minister of State will be aware that many problems have still not been fixed within the banking system; not only in Ireland but also Europe-wide and globally. Are we going to be here to pick up the pieces again? The Minister of State has said that capital ratios have improved within the banking sector but I believe there are serious aspects still to be considered. I do not want to see citizens having to pay out again in addition to the €67 billion that we are already paying out, the effects of which people are still suffering. I would rather see money invested in people, and especially in children with disabilities who cannot get the vital services and supports they need. We spoke earlier of physiotherapy and all of those services. I would rather see funding directed to investment in our people and in people who are currently being marginalised and deprived of funding in all of these areas, rather than the funding being left to one side just in case the banks collapse again.