Noonan’s ‘rainy day fund’ plan makes sense - Jan O’Sullivan

Labour Minister for Education Jan O'Sullivan has said Fine Gael Minister Michael Noonan's plan for a "rainy day fund" makes sense, but she did not necessarily agree with his proposed €2.5 billion figure.

Mr Noonan revealed his proposal to set aside the money from resources available to the next Government ahead of Labour’s national conference in Mullingar, Co Westmeath.

“I think it makes sense to have a rainy day fund but just in terms of the amount of money we’re talking about spending, we’re saying three to one for services versus tax...I think a fund does make sense,” she said.

“I don’t see any reason why there wouldn’t be space for a fund that would be available...I’m not necessarily agreeing with the figure.”

Ms O’Sullivan and Ms Noonan are constituency colleagues in Limerick.

Minister of State at the Department of Health Kathleen Lynch cautioned such predictions were predicated on the economy continuing to grow in the way that it is at present.

She said the economy was having a “huge growth spurt”, but Labour predicted the economy would settle into a “more realistic” rate of growth in the future.

“But even that should allow us to manage the economy in a more rational way and also to start putting in place the type of facilities that should have been done of course during the boom but weren’t,” Ms Lynch said.

They were speaking ahead of a workshop entitled ‘Standing up for families’ at the Labour conference on Saturday afternoon.