Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is very typical that in this building, where many younger people work, their rent payments now significantly exceed a mortgage on a similar property to what they are paying rent on. As a collection of economists this is a conundrum that we have to try to solve. Would the witnesses agree that unless we can get this right, the long-term implications for the economy are that, in older age, those people are not going to have what their parents or grandparents had, which was an asset by the time they had paid off their mortgage?

I do not know if the witnesses have paid any attention to the supply of skills. The report notes that unemployment has fallen. That is very good and I spent much time working on that myself.

The number of apprenticeships and people training to work in the building industry is flat and not rising, however. Can the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, as a group, suggest that could be a priority? Otherwise we will return to a situation similar to the late boom, where we took in people to work on house building who themselves had to build houses to provide for their own housing. Unless we get the apprenticeship, training and education investment right, we will run into serious problems and put ourselves back in the cycle that the council warns against.

On the various tax breaks, I would appreciate comment by the IFAC on research and development tax credits. The study published earlier this year suggested that much of this was dead weight and the amounts involved are significant. That ties in with corporation tax reductions.

Does the IFAC agree that the economy needs more wage growth? In order for the economy to perform better, we need more wage growth. It should be moderate growth, but it is necessary. Does the fiscal council approve of the FEMPI restoration? Is that within its remit? Does it see scope to deepen that?

Further to the witnesses' charming and sweet comments on the fiscal space and the additional in-year spending measures, described in page 4 of the IFAC submission, there is another phenomenon occurring in this economy. There has been a massive expansion in so-called self-employment, much of which is bogus. As a Minister, I commissioned a report into this, which the Department has refused to publish, and has sat there for well over a year. The level of self-employment is such that a surge in self-employed tax returns will be evident in November. Last year, we had various discussions around figures which were ultimately wrong because the self-employed tax surge had not been factored in. To what extent has the IFAC done that? I reckon there will be probably be an extra €400 million to €500 million, perhaps a little more, which will enable the Minister for Finance to become a Santa Claus, because he will have the capacity to expand the fiscal space or more accurately the spending base of 2017. If the Minister is going to do that, and it is more than likely he will do it if if can, does the IFAC have any recommendations regarding what he should spend it on? Would it suggest spending it on areas such as education or more housing? Would the council agree that it will happen or does it have any model that would allow us to calculate that? Otherwise, as happened last year, most of our forecasts will be significantly out, notwithstanding all the council's good work..