Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Shifting the goalposts from the Government's point of view is fairly evident to people, but worth underlining as we enter into the election. There is a more serious argument for saying that we do not have to overshoot the targets. In fact, I was at a presentation given by Michael Taft earlier on an alternative fiscal framework for a progressive alternative economic policy. He said there is absolutely no reason we should try to get to a surplus by 2018, as the Government plans, and that we could do it by 2020 with lesser adjustments. That would give us considerably more space to spend and invest. What does the council say to that?

The other interesting point Mr. Taft made was on the structural deficit as a useful metric and early warning system against possible return to boom and bust. If one looks at the structural deficit for Ireland before the crash, it did not tell one anything about the possibility that a crash was coming. In fact, one would think that everything was rosy in the garden. He says it is a useless measure of whether something bad is about to happen. One thing I have signalled to the witnesses that I therefore consider very worrying and which none of the metrics have picked up was at the centre of the last crash. I refer to property and what is happening there. Housing is a disaster that is going to get worse very quickly, not just from the point of view of those who need it but from the macro point of view. The cost of accommodation is going through the roof, which has all sorts of knock-on effects. Should we not be jumping up and down and screaming alarms, so to speak, over that fact?

Lastly, the council has a section on the statistical treatment of Irish Water in its report. Can the witnesses summarise it briefly? As I understand it, the council is saying that because of the huge subsidy that has been given to Irish Water and because the charges have been set so low, it cannot possibly cover its costs. It will have to subsidise it with the €100 and all this kind of stuff. One effect is that the capital investment programme is not much. It also affects our deficit. Those subsidies increase our deficit. Is it fair to say, judging from this, that for Irish Water to stop having an impact on our deficit and to cover its own costs, domestic charges would have to increase dramatically?