Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have a number of questions. I welcome the delegation from the Commission. However, I find a contradiction at the heart of the presentation. Mr. Martínez Mongay spoke of the need to have a moderately expansionary fiscal stance and he said the Commission wants this to happen, yet when we introduced a budget that is expansionary, it was criticised because we did not put the gains we have made into debt reduction. We were not allowed to have any fiscal expansion.

Mr. Martínez Mongay spoke about the social impact of the crisis and many of the expenditure aspects of the budget are directed towards addressing that impact. The Commission invited the authorities to take necessary measures to ensure compliance with the SGP. Mr. Martínez Mongay also spoke about the high level of debt, yet he ignored the role the Commission had as a member of the troika in setting that debt by not giving us any leeway around bondholders and bank debt in particular. Our hands were tied in terms of expansionary fiscal measures that the Commission otherwise called for. Could he address the contradiction?

The presentation made by Mr. Martínez Mongay is very like the budget presented by the Government in that it is a Brexit-free zone.

He spoke about positive tail winds, but the decision by Britain to exit the European Union is a gale on our doorstep. What impact does Mr. Martínez Mongay believe this will have in 2017 and what short-term impact does he believe it will have on our figures? Is the Commission willing to assist us in dealing with this impact, given that we are the only country on the front line of this major happening?

In September, the President of the Commission, Mr. Juncker, spoke about the need for capital expansion and the need to be flexible about the rules on capital expenditure. We have major capital deficits in this country, which will be addressed during a capital review in 2017. Will Mr. Martínez Mongay put meat on the President's proposals on relaxing the rules for capital expenditure in particular?