John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests. I have what might seem like an unusual point in context of the two opening statements.

One of the issues from socialising the impact of what is happening is the remoteness of a war in Europe, and neither the ESRI or IFAC mentioned that in their opening statements. In terms of the Government doing its job, what we have seen, as some have said, is the weaponising of energy. That should be upfront in the opening paragraphs from the witnesses because the remoteness of the war is being lost on ordinary people in the street. We would not have the discussions we are having were not for the organising of energy and the fact Russia invaded Ukraine. That is the backdrop to everything and it must feed into all of the narratives. That may seem trite to the witnesses, but it is important. It frames every discussion we will have in the run-up to the budget.

My response and questions will be in scattergun form. We had a number of presentations prior to the recess. Indexing pensions and welfare obviously comes at a price. One of the things we were told in a presentation is that indexing pensions, for example, would require an increase of up to €23 in the old age pension in order for people to keep in step with inflation. I would love to see it, but if there is a pension increase of anything remotely approaching that it will clearly come at a cost at some other end of the scale.

I will again put it on the record during this, my sixth year on the Committee on Budgetary Oversight, that IFAC was established to institutionalise the memory of the crash. In this sixth year of my membership of this committee, the witnesses have reminded us of that. I feel like saying to them that they have lied to us about the fallibility of corporation tax. It has been said for six years and we may disregard what they have said. I would like to hear the response of the witnesses, because we are told that it cannot last but they can never tell us why.