The Future Ireland Fund, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, is predicted to have built up €40bn in assets under management by the end of the current government’s term.

The fund, which was announced in October 2023 to support future state costs such as pensions, is set to receive €4.5bn in funds from the government next year.

Delivering his Budget 2026, Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe, said: “…we continue to put money aside in the two long-term savings funds – the Future Ireland Fund and the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund, to help us to deal with the demographic and structural challenges that may lie ahead.

“By the end of next year, my Department projects these funds will have built up to around €24bn; an investment to protect future generations. By the end of this Government’s term, we expect to have more than €40bn built up in these long-term funds.”

Despite predictions that the My Future Fund will reach €100bn over the longer term, National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) chief economist, David Purdue, has previously said it “won’t revolutionise” the Irish economy.

However, he previously said that the return could be about 2-3 per cent a year, equating to a few billion euros.

“They are very welcome, but they aren’t transformatory. In the sense that one fund [Future Irish Fund] will get up to about €100bn and the other will get up to €14bn, which sounds like large numbers.

“That is very valuable and helpful, but it doesn’t fundamentally change the fiscal picture for Ireland. It will be a new revenue source in the 2040s, but it is not going to revolutionise ourselves,” he said at the Irish Association of Pension Funds (IAPF) Investment Conference in March 2024.

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