Mr. Colm McCarthy:

The IFAC report is comprehensive. Once upon a time, before we had a fiscal council, the role of grumbling about budget policy was that of the Governor of the Central Bank. Successive incumbents did that to no great effect. I am really pleased that we have a distinct State agency to grumble about fiscal policy and that the Central Bank is left to supervise the banking system, something in respect of which, as the Deputy might recall, it did not do a very good job. It is displacement activity for central banks to whinge at finance ministries about budget policy. We now have a better allocation of functions.

The IFAC report is technically a terrific piece of work. I read this kind of stuff for a hobby and it is one of the best documents that has been produced by the Irish public service for a long time. I am sure Dr. Kinsella would agree. It did make the comment quoted by Deputy Pearse Doherty that the fiscal projections were not credible. Since then, we have learned that an overshoot is coming in health this year, a matter about which IFAC did not know of when it compiled that part of the report. It also pointed out that Christmas is going to happen this year and that there is a so-called Christmas bonus in some of the social transfer payments which is not provided for even though it is the intention of all that it be paid. Some things are unpredictable, but Christmas is not one of them. It is unfortunate that the figures in the strategic programme update had to be described by IFAC as not credible.