Noel Coonan (Tipperary North, Fine Gael)
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Question 62: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the balance of the Social Insurance Fund for each of the past ten years; the projected balance for the next three years; the expected deficit for 2010; and the details of the way in which this deficit will be met [15417/10]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The Social Insurance Fund operates under the terms of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act 2005. The Fund comprises a current account and an investment account. The Minister for Social and Family Affairs manages and controls the current account from which benefit payments are made, while the Minister for Finance, through the National Treasury Management Agency, manages the investment account. To the extent that annual income is not required for benefit payments, this finance, together with the accumulated surplus from previous years, is transferred to the investment account.

Between 1999 and 2007, the fund had a surplus each year, ranging from €256m in 2003 to €649m in 2006. The accumulated surplus rose from €420m in 1999 to €3,632 in 2007. Deficits were recorded in 2008 and 2009, reducing the accumulated surplus to €934m at the end of 2009.

In 2010 the Fund will exhaust the cash balance held in the investment account. The operating deficit of the Fund at the end of 2010 is estimated to be €1.55 billion, which will be borne by the Exchequer by means of a subvention from the Oireachtas – Vote 38.

It is forecast that the Social Insurance Fund expenditure will exceed its income in each of the years 2011 to 2013, with the deficit continuing to be borne by means of a subvention from the Exchequer. The Social Insurance Fund will continue to hold a capital asset over this period represented in the form of Department's headquarters property in Store Street, Dublin.

The following table shows details of the receipts payments and balance of the Social Insurance Fund for each of the past ten years.

Balance in Social Insurance Fund 1999 - 2009

* The accounts for financial year 2009 are currently being prepared so the above figures are provisional.