David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My final question is in two parts. I will return to the sustainability of our tax base and the relationship between that and the budget. From responses to the previous question, I understand the IFAC's mandate and the limitations it has. The witnesses do not want to get into specifics but they mention the sustainability of the corporation tax rates and revenues from corporation taxes. We had a spike this year and last year in that. Are the witnesses concerned about the sustainability of those figures?

Regardless of what tax it might be, if we were to phase out or abolish taxes that are billions of euro, it is of a huge scale. There must be some opinion on that and on making budgetary decisions that are based on corporation tax rates where there was a spike and on the basis of eventually phasing out taxes or eroding the tax base to the extent that might happen over the next number of years. What are the witnesses' views on that?

It is very interesting to hear some of the voices that shouted loudest in support of the fiscal rules now looking for flexibility and talking about the rules being a strait jacket. IBEC is one of those. It is welcome that we are trying to get more investment in terms of capital investment but IBEC talks about taking the fight to Brussels to allow the investment strait jacket to be loosened. It then makes an argument that we should only pay down the interest on our debt and not on the capital. It was a unique and novel suggestion from IBEC. How tenable is it?

While the witnesses are limited to discussing capital investments, IFAC published a very significant document, which I have here, on capital investments in which it talks about very depressed levels of capital investment. The European Commission is on side. IBEC, trade unions and almost all the groups that have come in have said that we have had a capital investment strike and we need to invest more. Rather than asking how much, I am more interested in what areas the witnesses believe we need to increase capital investment.