Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for their presentations and for the work they have done on their report. It was strange to listen to Deputies John Lahart and Lisa Chambers as they made strong political points and accused Fine Gael of failing to learn sufficiently quickly from the mistakes of previous Administrations. We recently learned from some work that was done by Deputy Peter Burke that in the first six months of this year, Fianna Fáil made extra spending demands amounting to €4.35 billion. That puts some of the concerns that have been raised into perspective. It proves that the approach taken by Fine Gael in government is very different from the approach taken by Fianna Fáil in opposition.

I take the points that have been made in the report. I welcome IFAC's assessment that "Government revenues have performed well in 2019 to date". As a result of the council's confirmation that tax receipts at the end of August were in line with expectations, with strong year-on-year growth of 8.1%, we can be confident that the €57.9 billion target, as set in budget 2019, will be achieved. IFAC's concerns regarding health expenditure have been mooted for a long time.

I note from the comments of the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, on the health budget after the Cabinet meeting that, compared with last year, we are in in a much better position. It is very easy to talk about budgets when one is sitting in a room, and IFAC has been vocal on health spending, but health care costs relate to people and it is a very difficult budget to manage. Much progress has been made in that regard. We know how important it is to get the health budget right and we continue to work on it.

At our June meeting, IFAC highlighted the risk of the economy overheating. Given the current Brexit developments, does IFAC believe that these risks have reduced? IFAC uses a principles-based approach to analysing compliance with the fiscal rules. Will the witnesses elaborate further on this and how it diverges from the EU's commonly agreed methodology? The Government has been successful in bringing the country to its medium-term objective. Will the witnesses elaborate on why this is important from the perspective of public finances?