Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

On section 110, Mr. Howard alluded to some advice he had received regarding the mark-to-market clause. I appreciate he cannot share the Attorney General's legal advice. I ask the Minister and/or his departmental officials and the Revenue officials to provide to the committee whatever rationale they have on the existing amendment. It sounds as if they have a rationale on mark to market. They probably have a rationale on restricting it to property and so forth. I ask them to provide this to the committee quickly so that we can assimilate it and reach an opinion.

The fiscal space is constrained considerably by the convergence margin. There is a clear difference of opinion. The Commission is suggesting that our economy has overheated and that therefore our structural deficit is bigger than our general Government deficit. Many in Ireland disagree with that and point to many indicators that our economy is not overheating. Is there any scope to push back on the Commission's view and point out that we do not believe our structural deficit is several hundred million euro greater than our general Government deficit, thereby increasing the fiscal space for 2017? The information the committee has this morning is that it would increase significantly if we were able to push back.