Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

No. I would like to see the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council spread its wings and broaden the interpretation of the implementation of its mandate. We had an election that was defined by the relatively narrow issue as to what the fiscal space is. This budget debate will be defined largely around narrow figures of €1 billion one way or the other, which sounds flippant and is the marginal issue, while the big issue is whether we are providing space for people to express themselves, to work in the public service with real efficiency and innovation and, as a result, improve the daily lives of our people. Being good at that and being strategic in the State is what we need to debate but, for some reason, we get stuck in what I see as a very out of date, old fashioned, narrow economic argument around fiscal measures, which are important as we have to avoid the economy overheating, but avoiding that will come from greater productivity and assessment of the risks facing us.

Taking into account the council's mandate to comment on the stability programme update, which I imagine includes risk assessment such as its assessment of Brexit today, the stability programme update rightly identifies for the first time that the fiscal risk of us failing completely to meet our climate targets is of major risk to this State. A member of the climate advisory committee to the State published data this week estimating a fiscal risk to the State of the order of €5.5 billion from our current trajectory in terms of failure to make emissions reductions along the lines we would expect. The council delegates did not mention that in their assessment but would they agree with the Department of Finance's risk assessment of it being a major fiscal risk to the State as well as a risk to the wider environment?