Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is very helpful. Professor McHale is showing his teeth less as time goes on. I am not sure whether it is about being longer in the position. I will come to this in a minute. The report, which is almost 30 pages long, has no reference bar a footnote to the improvement in the structural balance. The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council got into hot water regarding a "Morning Ireland" interview whereby the Commission had not informed it that the structural balance target for 2016 was 0.6%. Will we achieve this 0.6%? Is clear from the earlier documentation the Department put in the public domain that we will not achieve it. When I asked the Minister, Deputy Noonan, about this earlier he spoke about the two complementary pillars, which are the expenditure benchmark, referred to over and over in the report, and the improvement in the structural balance. He stated that the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council's view was that the over-performance of tax revenue in 2016 would secure compliance with this rule. Is the view of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council that we will comply with the structural balance rule?