Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

They have some legal powers that are mandatory and, I suppose, the key one is that when we're doing forecasts for 2016 on which we base the budget, they have to be endorsed by the Fiscal Advisory Council. And if the Fiscal Advisory Council don't ... don't endorse them, I can't use them for the base for a budget. Now, there's a good relationship between forecasters in Finance and them. And John ... Dr. John McHale has complimented the economic section on their forecast. But they must endorse the forecast, otherwise I can't build the budget on the forecast that Finance produces. Now, that's an extremely strong power ... an extremely strong power and it's mandatory.

The advice is persuasive and, obviously, no Minister wants to be at variance with the advice of the Fiscal Advisory Council to a great ... to a large extent. But, when you remember that part of their mandate is to give a contrarian view ... because Wright and various other people said one of the problems in Ireland was that contrarian views weren't entertained, once that's their mandate, it seems to be that most of the time when they do a studied ... a study of Irish fiscal policy that's promoted by the Minister, they won't agree with it. So it depends on how they present it.