Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The submission was very good and very focused on the work we have to do. There have been many submissions about IFAC taking on the role of costings, which I was never 100% convinced of.

I think it could interfere with the independence of the office. One is then dealing with political parties and elections which could take away from it.

Three options have been spelled out. Will Professor McHale explain how he sees option 3, the hybrid option, working in terms of it not being a clearing house but being able to do independent costings of budget proposals? When one speaks of independent costings of budget proposals, is that independent of the Departments of Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform or is it approved by the parliamentary budget office? Is it the case that the office would have access to the information, as suggested, and data from all Departments, including the Revenue but they could decide that is under-providing and have autonomy in that regard.