Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 19:

In page 29, between lines 13 and 14, to insert the following: “(c) the investment strategy or investment decisions carried out under this Act,”.

Amendment No. 19 seeks to amend section 33 to provide that within the obligations of the chief executive to appear before the Committee of Public Accounts, he or she would be required to give evidence in regard to the investment strategy or investment decisions carried out under this Act.

Amendment No. 26 seeks to amend section 43(3) to provide that the ability of the authority to ensure that investments are made on an ethical basis in line with best practice and domestic and international law will be included as part of a review of the effectiveness of the Act.

Amendment No. 51 seeks to amend section 68(4) to provide that an investment manager contract would include provisions under which the authority, the Minister or both Houses of the Oireachtas might instruct the investment management provider to divest from certain portfolios where ethical issues arise.

Amendment No. 64 seeks to insert a new section providing that the authority would ensure that the assets of a relevant auto-enrolment provider scheme are not directly or indirectly invested in cryptocurrency or portfolios which are exposed to cryptocurrencies. The definition of “cryptocurrency” used is taken from the Government's Electoral Reform Act 2022.

Amendment No. 66 seeks to amend section 75(1) by inserting a new paragraph which would require that provisions around environmental risks should be in compliance with obligations under the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act 2018. I thought this provision was a safety net or an avoidance-of-doubt measure but I am still extremely concerned. I thought the argument would be that we are already required to be compliant but that does not seem to be the argument we are getting. I am concerned. It would be appropriate to copper-fasten the commitment to compliance with obligations under the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act rather than the more general language of environmental risk, which is wider and subject to interpretation.

Amendment No. 67 seeks to insert a new section mirroring the provisions of the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act 2018 and the very recent transposition of those provisions into the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Nature and Climate Fund Act 2024, which is, shockingly, missing from this Bill. This is a huge amount of public money. When we talk about how our public money is being used and directed, we have obligations to ensure that it is used in the best possible way and in ways that are certainly not doing harm. It was appropriate with regard to the Future Ireland Fund and the Infrastructure, Nature and Climate Fund that the provisions of the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act 2018 were echoed. However, we do not see those provisions echoed in this legislation. What we see is very weak language that does not give us strong assurances in terms of a guarantee of the kind of hard and solid measures that we have seen regarding divestment from fossil fuels.

Amendment No. 68 seeks to insert a new section providing that, in accordance with Part 4 of the Act of 2008, the authority would not directly or indirectly invest the assets of a relevant auto-enrolment provider in munitions companies; and that where assets of a relevant auto-enrolment provider scheme have been directly or indirectly invested in a company which is or becomes a munitions company, the authority would seek the divestment of such assets immediately.

Amendment No. 69 seeks to insert a new section providing that the authority would ensure that the assets of a relevant auto-enrolment provider scheme are not directly or indirectly invested in an undertaking operating within an occupied territory; and where the authority becomes aware that an undertaking in which the assets of a relevant scheme are directly or indirectly invested becomes an undertaking operating in an occupied territory, the authority would ensure divestment of the assets.

Amendment No. 70 seeks to insert a new section providing that the authority would ensure the assets of a relevant AE provider scheme are not directly or indirectly invested in undertakings carrying out business in a territory where they do not have a legal basis to do so; and where the authority becomes aware that such an undertaking is operating in a territory where it does not have a legal basis to do so, the relevant AE provider will be required to divest its assets from such an investment as soon as practicable.

With regard to this final amendment, we have heard a lot with regard to occupied territories and the point that it is difficult for the State to decide what is an occupied territory. There is clear guidance on how to determine what is an illegally occupied territory from the International Court of Justice and under the Geneva Convention - it is right there. However, in failing to address that issue, we have left ourselves in another legally ambiguous situation, which is the question of what is the basis on which we invest or trade with those who are operating without a legal basis. If a company, however big it is, is currently trading in illegally occupied territories, the question is on what legal basis it is trading. For example, in the case of the most commonly given example, and probably the one that is most pertinent at the moment, which is the occupied Palestinian territories, is it trading under the illusion that it has a legal basis to do so? If it is a big company or undertaking that is operating in the occupied Palestinian settlements, those are illegal settlements, so what is the basis for that? The company is not operating under the EU-Israel association agreement because it explicitly cannot include occupied territories. It is not operating under WTO or GATT rules because they require a jurisdictional mandate to have been given, and it has not been given.

There are many companies in this position. It is not a matter of asking if it is legal to take our money out of illegally occupied territories. The point is that it is not really legal to have our money in illegally occupied territories. It would be appropriate for us to start talking about how that is legal, and if it is not legal, maybe we should not be doing it. That is why, if we have undertakings that are operating in territories where they do not have a legal basis to operate, public money should not be contributing to that, even if it is public money given to an individual or given to a fund.

There are huge questions here. Morally, the whole basis of the scheme is that if we have a situation where we see a washing of hands in regard to what happens with the money, then, to come back to the universal pension, we have to say that maybe it is not appropriate to have our public money going into a scheme where we effectively abdicate what happens to the public money in terms of these providers and of ethics. Maybe it would be better to have the State investing its money in such a way that we know we can track it and know it is ethical, in a way that can be accountable and responsive, rather than having a huge amount of public money leaving State hands and going into a system.

When I look at section 43 and other sections, I do not see strong enough controls in terms of what we discussed earlier. We are hearing a lot of language about how it is not our money now. Frankly, it is not responsible use of public moneys to put them out of reach of accountability and put them where simply delivering a return will be the only piece in play. In fact, they do not even need to deliver a return depending on what level of risk might be attached.

I am concerned. It is a long group of amendments and all of them are about ethics. I ask the Minister to address them one by one and give me some assurance as to how these issues are going to be reflected.