Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My party has been very critical of forecasts and budgets not being credible and as we have been taken to task on that quite heavily, it is good to hear an independent voice saying the very same thing. Looking at corporate tax receipts, it appears the Government has become quite accustomed to using corporate tax windfalls to plug major holes in the budget and the State finances. This has masked excessive spending beyond our means. Far from balancing the books, which is what we have been hearing about from the Government for the last three years as it lauds the idea of running a surplus, the Government has not been spending what it has been taking in but has been heavily reliant on corporate tax receipts. They are projected to exceed the forecasts again this year, even more so than last year. Taking last year into account, have those corporate tax receipts been used to fund permanent expenditure in the past?