Professor Michael McMahon:

I thank Mr. Barnes and Deputy Lahart. This relates somewhat to Deputy Durkan's point about taking action and when in the process you take it. As Mr. Barnes was pointing out, our mandate is to assess the overall fiscal stance. We know that. It is not currently in our remit to discuss whether the adjustments fall more on one generation than another but when you assess the current fiscal stance, it is important to know the direction of travel.

When we published the first long-term sustainability report last year, what was striking as we went through the analysis, and what stood out in the report, was how if actions were deferred until they became very apparent and the glaring headlights were a couple of feet away, the actions that needed to be taken at that later point would be much larger and as, Mr. Barnes alluded to, fall on a generation of people who are 15 or 20 years down the road. We proposed - and this applies both to the ageing population and issues such as climate, on which much more work needs to be done - it is exactly right to have that longer-term view when making these assessments. Early actions that mitigate things can be taken and, as Deputy Durkan said, in some cases, it feels as though we should have taken early action years ago. We do not have that ability, but we do have the ability to start thinking about and making the changes now. That is the sense in our assessment of the proposed configuration of current spending, increases in investment and tax cuts being at the limit of what we think is prudent, especially when projecting further down the road, knowing that these hard choices will have to be made. That is the basis for why this focus on the long term is a really important one that we can do as part of our assessment of the macro aggregate fiscal stance.