asked the Minister for Finance whether he has abandoned his intention (as expressed in the Financial Statement made in May, 1933) of borrowing for Export Bounties against the security of the Deferred Annuities Fund in view of the fact that no such fund exists.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Deferred Annuities Fund as Security for Borrowing.
In the course of my Budget Statement for the financial year, 1933/34, I explained that it was intended to borrow in that year the sum of £1,225,000 for Export Bounties and Subsidies on the security of certain assets which arose out of the economic war as an offset to the liabilities imposed by the latter. In the table explanatory of the Budget circulated on the following day this proposal was referred to as "Borrowing against the Deferred Annuities Fund." This was merely a brief and convenient description for the purposes of a tabular statement of a proposal I had already fully explained in my Budget Statement, and it should not have been construed as a declaration of intention to set up a separate fund to account for the receipts from deferred annuities. The Deputy will appreciate that the soundness of the proposal and the reality of the assets latent in deferred annuities receipts are not affected by the non-existence of a Deferred Annuities Fund as a separate entity.
Arising out of the Minister's reply am I to understand that the statement contained in the explanatory circular bore the same relation to fact that the statements referred to by Deputy Dowdall bore to the real intentions of the Fianna Fáil Party?
The Deputy is unfortunately a junior member of the Dáil and I am not accountable for what he understands, but I may say this, that the official statement was made in my Budget speech and an explanatory statement was circulated for the convenience of the Deputies, and that that cannot be taken as my speech.
Then that supplementary statement that was issued by the Minister is in connection with a fund that does not exist, did not exist, and never will exist.