Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for attending. I would welcome some clarification of their comments regarding pension age because it is a very different conversation when one is talking about making it optional for someone who wants to keep working at the age of 68, 69 or beyond that and a mandatory situation, which would present a lot of difficulties. Based on the witnesses' opening statement, it is fair to say that they are broadly supportive of the proposal to integrate USC and PRSI.

In respect of the potential overheating of the economy, I recognise from their opening statement that they say that the economy is not overheating now but as the Committee on Budgetary Oversight, we should be mindful of looking at the risks of that. We discussed the potential risk of that with the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council. As we continue to ramp up our housing production, do the witnesses agree that it is a potential threat with regard to that overheating? What mitigating measures can we take from a budgetary perspective to address that? There has been much media coverage recently of Fianna Fáil's proposal to reduce VAT rates for developers. Do the witnesses see any risks in that? What would be their view of such an initiative were it to come into play?

The witnesses have obviously recognised the specific impact of Brexit on agriculture and food and made the very wise point that Brexit will be felt differently in different sectors and geographic regions, probably no more so than in agriculture and food. On the basis of that, do the witnesses think there is merit in having specific budgetary measures that would look to tackle this? We always tend to talk about Brexit as something that will happen in a year and a half regardless of whether it is hard or soft, but the discussions around Brexit are already having a very real impact, particularly in the agriculture and food sector and no more so than in the area of currency volatility. Do the witnesses see merit in budgetary measures that would look to address those issues now for food producers and processors who are in very serious difficulty?

I asked a question earlier about corporation tax and forecasts.

Does the witness think that our forecasting system for corporation tax, as linked to the budgetary process, is adequate? It is clearly volatile because there are so many moving parts involved. Are there ways in which we can look to improve the forecasting system in this area, given that it is such a key component of our budgetary process? What are the ESRI's views on the current evaluation process for tax expenditure? How can we evaluate tax expenditure measures in the future so that we can prioritise the resources we have? Do the witnesses have any comments on how this is done at present and how we might improve it?

Speaking as somebody who is new to this committee since just before the summer, I would like to hear the witnesses' views on how the whole Oireachtas pre-budgetary scrutiny process, of which we on this committee are an integral part, is carried out. Do they have suggestions as to how this might be improved in the future?