James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I suppose Mr. Hogan understands the luxury of time is not necessarily a commodity I have in great supply and I have to cut Mr. Hogan off. We are in a situation where we know that, in 2020, the NTMA and the Department of Finance were involved in the procurement of approximately €26 billion in borrowing. We are now facing into very uncertain economic times with the war in Ukraine which has the potential to do significantly more damage to the economy than Covid, which is pretty hard to believe, when it comes to the increase in the cost of oil and other seriously important commodities that are vital to the running of an island economy such as Ireland that does not have access to many raw materials as such. What does the Oireachtas need to do to enable the Department to get over the next 18 months, which look to be incredibly unpredictable? It is quite worrying.

One area on which there could be a very serious knock-on impact is our corporation tax if profits were to drop as a consequence of ever-increasing costs of supplying companies. That is something I hear on the ground from business people and SMEs throughout the country. I am sure the same could be said further up the ladder. We will see that later in the year in terms of when companies' profits are returned. I assume corporation tax is one of the areas that will be very badly impacted by the war and by supply issues in terms of companies facing increasing challenges as they try to get goods and services moved. They show that the Irish economy is extraordinarily exposed to some ongoing international issues, especially around the war in Ukraine. What work is the Department undertaking when it comes to trying to make the economy bulletproof to some degree? I know it is not entirely possible to do that. I would like some reassurances from the Secretary General in that regard.