Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The current situation is that without adequate child care or some sort of financial break, there is no choice for the female because there is no real paternity leave available for the man in the relationship. Accordingly, it removes choice. It effectively removes the woman from the workplace without her having a choice. I was happy to hear the positive impacts across the board this one policy could have.

On regional disparities in rising employment rates, the west is the slowest to improve. It would be helpful if the delegation could pass on information as to how the committee could address this in budget 2017.

Yesterday at the committee, the Central Bank was reluctant to comment on whether the tax base is broad enough, too narrow or okay as it stands. While it claimed it was not within its remit, it was pointed out that, as it poses a risk to our economy, it is within its remit. Nonetheless, we did not progress on getting an answer from that. Is our tax base broad enough? Is it robust enough to deal with another hit such as Brexit, the Apple tax finding or problems with the Chinese or US economies? There are many international pressures bubbling away over which we have no control. What we can control is our stability and putting in place enough buffers to ensure our tax base is secure enough. Is there anything we can do in this year’s budget to strengthen the tax base?