Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for missing the presentation. If there is a written one, I am sure I will get the document. I want to ask about one specific matter, namely, a recent IMF technical assistance report on public expenditure in Ireland. I do not know whether the IFAC was involved. The report has a range of recommendations. The worry is that it has identified an efficiency gap in the Irish economy. By comparison with our peer countries, it is quite significant, at 58%. I refer to our level of expenditure and the capital stock outcome. Therefore, we must take seriously the recommendations on how we might improve, particularly when our capital expenditure is about to be ramped up. The report is quite critical of PPPs and calls for much more rigorous assessment and more open, transparent cost-benefit analyses. It calls for a better cost-savings ratio before anything further is agreed. It calls for a new public spending code and for much greater transparency across the board in the assessment of our capital stock and future fiscal commitments regarding PPPs and other measures. The report seeks the setting up of an infrastructure project unit with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. The Department might have written the recommendation itself. Was the IFAC engaged in the process? Did it review the paper? On the recommendation to have an infrastructure project unit within the Department, the National Economic and Social Council, NESC, has done some work on examining the UK experience with the National Infrastructure Commission and so on. Has the IFAC considered any of this analysis? Is it informing its recommendations from a fiscal advisory perspective?