Dr. Micheál Collins:

I might begin by picking up on one small matter related to the questions the Deputy had for Dr. Roantree. The ESRI's report today is interesting and we will see a bounceback, but we should remember and expect that the bounceback to the economy will be quite uneven among sectors of the economy and regionally, which throws up a number of significant issues. Points that both Dr. Roantree and I have raised suggest there will be added pressure and need for the State to engage in further expenditure in the decades to come, and there are issues and challenges regarding how we will raise the revenue to pay for that.

Regarding that, the examination of the difference between what the State expects to receive in taxation and what actually arises is worth pursuing. Tax gap investigations are challenging and difficult to conduct, but we should watch them. It would be interesting for committees such as this to explore those issues and put them on their agenda in the years to come as budget policy is examined. We spend much time thinking about budgets and budgetary policy decisions before they happen and then do not examine them enough after they have occurred and been implemented. There is an important role, in the context of oversight for budgetary decisions, to begin to think about that. I am familiar with some work done on tax gaps relating to VAT that suggests there are leakages there. Some interesting comparative analyses have been carried out, through EUROSTAT and others, on that as well.

It aligns with the issues we are examining in respect of tax expenditure as well. In a sense, as I put it earlier reasonably simply to try to make it accessible to as many people as possible, for every €5 the State collects in tax and social insurance, there is a further €1 it does not collect because it decides not to do so through the provision of various tax reliefs and measures. They are entirely legitimate and we have made decisions for the system to be structured in that way. Some of that relates to legitimate decisions that are worthwhile for the State, while for others there are questions that should be raised and examined from time to time, which is why it is so important that committees such as this one ask these questions from time to time. It is part of that hidden role of the State. The State has a significant impact, through its taxation decisions, on the resources it needs to collect.

If it decides not to collect a certain amount of money and resources there is a kick or knock-on effect for either raising that money elsewhere or cutting back on the provision of public services, which is the alternative to that. I have to honestly say to the Deputy that I am not an expert in the world of the detail of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA, so I will avoid that question, please, purely on that basis.