Professor Alan Barrett:

I will try to give a quick answer on the two further questions raised by Deputy Calleary, the first of which related to Brexit, the CCCTB and climate change. We have discussed previously Brexit and tax. I will speak briefly on climate change because I had not thought about it in the way in which the Deputy framed his question. If one looked at climate change in a very narrow way, namely, in terms of what fines or investments may be coming down the line, the issue is probably not as big as Brexit. However, there is a bigger issue to be discussed. For example, if Ireland fails to meet its targets or to undertake the investment required and we are fined, the signal it sends to the rest of the world is that we are not taking seriously the issue of climate change. If a group of countries starts to behave like this and it is in some sense acceptable not to try to meet targets or to do something about climate change, collectively or on a planetary level the impacts have the potential to be much greater than the combined impacts of Brexit and any tax changes. While there are different ways of looking at the climate change issue, it is certainly an issue that will feature more and more on the agenda. We discussed it only in terms of the feedback into how careful we need to be about hollowing out the current tax base because it is yet another thing that one can readily identify as presenting cost pressures in the future.

I will make a brief point before getting into the substance of the question about the national economic dialogue, NED. As chair, I was grateful that so many members of this committee came along and participated so actively. The NED is designed to ensure people can represent their groups and have their say, but elected officials represent large blocs of people so it was very important that they were there and I thank them for that. It is overwhelming to sit for two days and hear all the demands people make but its value is that we are exposed to these views and fully hear all the competing demands. As chair, I try to nudge people along to see if they can give reasonable justifications for their demands. This year was the third NED and I think it has improved in quality. People are beginning to realise that they cannot just come along and say they want more of X, Y or Z, and this feeds into a better discussion. I said to the Minister, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, that I did not envy him his task because it is bordering on an impossible position.