John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister and his officials for their public service. In fairness, he always attends when we ask.

I will ask questions from a budgetary oversight viewpoint. When the Minister talked about how the cost of this project will be covered in the future, the words that came into my head were "revenue buoyancy". He seemed to predicate one's ability to meet the gap or potential gap in costs with what he foresees as revenue buoyancy, which runs counter to everything that we have been told here at this committee either formally or informally. Most lately we have been told by the IMF, in an informal discussion, that it is not something on which we can rely. I ask the Minister to comment on the matter.