Mr. John McCarthy:

I thank the Chairman. Deputy Chambers and others referred to the timeliness of the stability programme update and asked what are the obstacles. I think it was Deputy Donnelly who mentioned at the start that the process kicks off in the November with the annual growth survey. The document is very generic and is not really a part of the process. For us, the process really kicks off in mid to late February when we get the Commission's forecasts because all member states are required to base their stability programmes on the Commission's numbers.

Another key obstacle is that we do not have the outturn for the economy for the previous year until mid to late March of the current year. The CSO will only publish to Q4 and hence the full years figures are available towards the end of March. We need that information before we can begin the whole endorsement exercise with the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, IFAC. That timeframe is not going to change.

One other final consideration is that we must go through, like all member states, an excessive deficit clarification process or EDP. As part of what we call the Maastricht returns, we have to send figures to EUROSTAT that must be validated. That process only occurs at the end of March each year. Every member state is in the same boat. There are a lot of iterations between EUROSTAT at the centre and the national statistical offices and the finance Ministries on the periphery. All figures have to be checked. We only get final notification from EUROSTAT that the figures are okay in the first or second week of April.

Finally, we have been totally transparent in terms of whether the committee and the Parliament should get the numbers when we give them to IFAC. For the past three years, since IFAC has been given an endorsement function, we have appeared in front of the finance committee and presented the exact same presentation that we have given to the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, and we have put that out there in public.