Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman. I will just ask questions. To pick up on Mr. Coffey's comments about capital expenditure, there is quite a degree of scepticism throughout the Fiscal Advisory Council's presentation about the increase in capital expenditure. I would suggest it is wary of it.

An analytical note produced in 2016 by IFAC, Public Capital: Investment, Stocks and Depreciation, highlighted the cost to the economy of falling capital expenditure. Earlier I suggested we needed to assess projects carefully. What metrics would IFAC use to assess them?

The Department of Finance has got corporation figures completely wrong in recent years and there have also been serious forecasting issues. Deputy Pearse Doherty mentioned USC, but the Department has got corporation tax figures completely wrong. That brings us back to the mid part of the previous decade when it got income tax figures completely wrong. On the work done by IFAC and its experience of dealing with the Department since it got those forecasts wrong, does Mr. Coffey, as chairman of IFAC and with reference to the report it has just prepared, have confidence in the ability of the Department to forecast corporation tax figures? What is the importance of such forecasts to budgetary and expenditure projections?

Budget 2018 will be the last budget before Brexit. Budget 2019 will have to take into account the fact that Brexit will happen during the course of that year. Which is the bigger threat to Ireland - Brexit or the CCCTB? Which will hit harder and sooner?

Last December it became apparent that there was a very strained relationship between IFAC and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform as, according to freedom of information material, the Department had felt IFAC was not engaging with it enough. What is the relationship like in advance of the budget? Is it necessary for IFAC to have a good relationship with the Department? Mr. Coffey has said that when he took office, he wanted to bare teeth. Has he had to do so in the time since his appointment?