Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the officials for attending and for explaining and elaborating on these arrangements. Deputy Doherty referred to the tension there might be between the Department, endorsed by the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, and an outside agency on growth forecasts. Is it possible that we could get an transparent outline framework of the model assumptions for growth? It is an area that resembles a blizzard. We are told what the Department's growth forecasts are but no one has an idea of the outline framework of the model used to produce them. The ingredients for arriving at the forecasts are presumably the same. They are the measurable elements of economic activity, but they go into a framework of modelling that will produce different outputs depending on where the twists and turns are in it. Is that not correct? We are all able to make Lego, Airfix and Meccano models. The public deserves an outline framework of what the models are built on.

Deputy Donnelly asked who are the bureaucrats in Europe and what qualifications they hold. These are good questions because we are told the aim is to adhere to the Stability and Growth Pact objectives in the medium term. The simple parameter is a 60% ratio of debt to national income or GDP. I do not know if the case has been made sufficiently relevantly for Ireland that national income, which applies to the indigenous economy, is different from the gross domestic product of a depot economy, as in the old British Empire, which had the East India Company in parts of India and so on. Multinationals generate goods and services in this country and debt-to-national-income is a different equation from debt-to-GDP.

The Commission is not too concerned about the composition of the budgetary mix as long as Stability and Growth Pact targets are in prospect. When penalties begin to kick in or adverse report card comments are made, quite apart from the measurement under this arrangement taking cognisance of the fact that the state is falling down, the rest of the world and his wife knows that such a country is in troubled waters anyway and will be unable to raise money. It is an academic and unnecessary exercise. Does Mr. Palmer have a comment on these thoughts?