Dr. Kieran McQuinn:

Yes. It was a very difficult budget to frame in the context of the challenges we faced. In terms of our overall assessment, it would have been to keep the tax take relatively neutral or even mildly contractionary. Within that one can argue as to where the increases should come about and we would broadly argue there should be less of an impact on those at the lower end of the scale. However, in terms of the overall macro assessment, we would have been, broadly speaking, in support of it because, as I said, the other part of the strategy was to divert funds that could be used to tackle those areas and sectors of the economy which would be most adversely impacted by a no-deal scenario.

In terms of the concession, and this touches on my response to Deputy Paul Murphy, if policy is to intervene in the context of a no-deal Brexit to mitigate the impacts on households that are likely to be impacted, the research our colleagues are doing on the carbon tax issue in examining the offsetting mechanisms that can be used to reduce the impact of carbon tax on lower income households is possibly a way to proceed.