Professor John McHale:

The Government has set out a plan and we are pointing out that, based on its best estimates, it will miss the targets set. That shows a certain lack of respect for the framework. We should never do this to ourselves again. There have been important institutional innovations, including the budgetary framework which we must now respect. I know that this is difficult to do in the lead-up to an election and we understand the pressures, but in a sense, it is a test of how seriously the framework is going to be taken.