Arthur Spring (Kerry North-West Limerick, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Historically, forecasting is not something we have got right in this country. Over the last three years, however, the Department of Finance's projection of the likely tax take has been very accurate by comparison with how it ended up. Over the past four or five years, there was one major year when the projection was inaccurate. In 2008, the projected return was something like €3 billion but it ended up being approximately €1 billion-----