Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

These are quick-fire questions. First, the council representatives said that the Government was at the outer limits of prudence. Would it be fair to say that our view about how we could and should raise extra money for spending, current and capital, from wealth taxes or higher taxes on those with higher incomes is far more prudent because it is about gaining extra revenue from relatively stable sources rather than basing it on sources that, the council maintains, are volatile?

Second, is it part of the remit of the council to warn against imprudence? We have mentioned the €300 billion figure for intellectual property. Another figure, which is the same, coincidentally, is the €300 billion worth of NAMA assets that have been disposed of, mostly to a small number of vulture funds. Is it part of the council remit to warn that this might be somewhat imprudent? Do the council representatives consider that movement of assets into a small number of hands imprudent?

Finally, we know the 26% jump in GDP is a fantasy. To what extent was that fantasy, perhaps on a smaller scale, present before the jump? How might that have affected the money we had to pay out to the European Union in the past ten years? Could we quantify that in a rough calculation? Given our population by comparison with other countries, was our contribution to the EU disproportionate? Does the council agree with that proposition?