Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am not sure it is a strong or persuasive argument to say the Minister did not run a surplus because Opposition politicians did not ask him to. That is effectively what he said. Representatives of IFAC, an independent watchdog that exists to ensure we do not repeat the mistakes of the past, came before the committee last week and were scathing in their comments.

Effectively, they said the mistakes of the past are being repeated and they advised that surpluses should have been run for the past three years but these have not materialised, with corporation tax receipts masking this. The Minister is having a cut at Opposition politicians for not putting more pressure on him to run a surplus but this does not answer the charge levelled at his door by IFAC.