Rainy day fund clearly not working

Reacting to a report that Paschal Donohoe will not transfer a planned €500 million to the so-called Rainy Day Fund, the leader of the Labour Party, Brendan Howlin TD, said that the fund is clearly not working.

Brendan said: “Labour was critical of the so-called Rainy Day Fund from the outset. All Fine Gael has done is move money from one State bank account to another, without providing the legal basis for the new fund to be deployed any quicker or more effectively than the existing Strategic Investment Fund. Now the Minister for Finance has dropped his own plan to put €500 million into the fund as part of this budget.

“If the Rainy Day Fund idea really worked, surely the Government would have funded it this year just in advance of a potential ‘no deal’ Brexit. The fact that they didn’t tells us that this is another failure by Fine Gael in managing the public finances.

“I do welcome the Government’s announcement of new emergency measures for Brexit, including a short-time working scheme, which is something that Labour has advocated for some time. However, if the Rainy Day Fund is in doubt, I hope the Government will take Labour’s advice and ring-fence €1 billion from existing cash reserves so that we can protect jobs and businesses from 1st November if need be.”