Mr. Sebastian Barnes:

One really important thing about it is just how much that exposure has increased. We have been talking about it for a long time but corporation tax in 2018 raised €10 billion. It would not be surprising if it comes back this year above €20 billion. Over four or five years, it basically will have doubled. The extent and the nature of that exposure has become massive. It was always a thing but now it has really become enormous. The Government essentially has not really explicitly had a policy about how to deal with it. We have called for contributions for some sort of rainy day fund. More recently, we argued for putting it through a new version of the National Pensions Reserve Fund. There has been no real action on that.

One improvement that was in the summer economic statement is to do budget numbers with an estimate of the excess taken out. That is the measure we were talking about earlier. If we look at the headline budget balance, we probably would have a balance of about 2% of national income this year but if we take it out, you have got a deficit of 2%, which is a more realistic way of looking at the public finances in terms of sustainability but also the flows of money of the economy.

As Dr. Casey has helpfully just reminded me, in some ways the 5% spending rule is a way of looking at it. If you follow the 5% spending rule and a lot more corporation tax comes in, it will not be spent. That is one important measure. It is not explicitly targeted at corporation tax but would have the same effect. It is important to help people to understand what is going on with these funds and that this money is being set aside for a good reason.