Mr. Sebastian Barnes:

At least in the Irish case, within the existing framework and within the spending rule that the Government is putting in place, the Government is also trying to undertake the biggest public investment programme in the State's history in keeping investment at a very high rate by international and by Irish historical standards. There is space but it comes down to making choices. Much of the debate around investment in the European context is a little bit like this. Some people are of the view that the rules prevented investment while others are of the view that governments, within the rules, chose not to prioritise investment and chose to prioritise consumption instead. It is partly a matter of choice within the rules therefore there is space to do these things. What is very important in an Irish context is to improve the planning for the longer term. Now we have ten-year economic forecasts from the Government for the first time, which is helpful in structuring the way to think about this. This is particularly the case around climate, where we have these important targets for 2030 but we do not really have a credible plan about how the Government will get there and what the fiscal implications are. We think some of the investment is already in the NDP, but we do not really know. All of these planning things are important and making these choices between what the level of taxation is and between different types of spending. It is possible to tackle these things but choices have to be made.