Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The answer to much of what the Deputy said is "Yes". It will be a five-year framework to 2023. There are a number of reasons I want to do this, one of which is there has been commentary from the committee on how we could have a longer horizon for planning. I am also increasingly conscious that the IMF will put forecasts in place up to 2023 and we should also be able to do so. They will be our economic forecasts of what we believe the budgetary outlook will be each year. What I will not be doing within them is making choices for how resources should be allocated between tax or expenditure or anything like it. They will just be what we believe the outlook is and beyond a certain point, all other things being equal, where the economy will stack up and what the impact will be on based on the different financial indicators.