Professor John McHale:

In terms of independence, the parliamentary budget office is a body that would not take instructions from Government. It would not take instructions from Parliament either. It would be an independent body and would have a very clear remit and set of responsibilities, for instance like the Congressional Budget Office in the United States which very much protects its independence. That would be critical. In the hybrid model the idea is that it would have the capacity necessary to do the kind of analysis that would be asked of it by the Oireachtas, that is analysis and policies, including cost benefit analysis but also the ability to do costings, including various costing tools, such as expertise in micro simulation. The point I was making is that it requires resources, that cannot be done on a shoestring, if one is to do it properly. At the same time, one cannot expect it to meet every demand that is placed on it for a costing, particularly when one is costing specific measure or doing a cost benefit analysis of specific measures. Sometimes that can be extremely complicated as Professor Alan Barrett discussed earlier. It is as the Deputy describe some sort of hybrid model that would retain the advantages of having a strong capable office, but not move so far in terms of the demands placed on it that it becomes unworkable.