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

In 2015, it was predicted that corporation tax would be €5 billion in 2018 and interest rate payments would be €9 billion in the same year. There has been little or no surplus since 2015. During this period, interest rates halved, which meant we paid half what we expected to pay in interest, and receipts from corporation tax were twice what was predicted. To quote Dr. Lawless, Government expenditure has absorbed a huge amount of that. These are not once-off emergency expenditures but expenditures that have become embedded and a systematic part of what we do. Is that an accurate summary?