Professor Alan Barrett:

I wish to re-emphasise the point touched by the Deputy that while we are arguing for the €2 billion, we have a different perspective on the medium term. From the council's perspective, it is important that this message is out there. We are not austerity hawks for the sake of it. It was a year or two ago when we sat in this room. Somebody essentially said that we would always call for more austerity. At the time, we put it in an international context when we said that if we were the fiscal council in Germany or the Netherlands, we would be telling them to do less austerity. We are not ideologues for the sake of it. This point is illustrated again with this balance. It is very important to emphasise that.

The Deputy has portrayed a bleak future, which is an interesting perspective. What the fiscal council is trying to add here is to get away from that phrase we used to have in Ireland where there used to be a sense that one could have it all. One could have the tax reductions and the additional expenditure. Part of the role we are trying to fulfil here is to present a clearly based analytical view that, as Mr. Barnes put it, there are choices to be made. It is up to the political class to make those choices but at least let them be made with clear knowledge and not in the sense that one can have one's cake and eat it.