Mr. Sebastian Barnes:

It is mostly risks to growth and we also take into account the risk of more extreme financial events. We do not explicitly take into account climate-related risks although, to a degree, they may come up in the growth risks. Obviously, they are difficult to quantify but they are something which are important to think about, together with the contingencies which may be required. The Commission proposals proposed that national IFIs would do debt sustainability analysis as a sort of input to the whole process. That would be consistent with what we do. With many of these requirements for countries for national IFIs is that for us, we already do a great deal of it. There are a few IFIs, which play a very limited role and the Commission is trying to bring them all up to the best practice, of which we might be an example.

On national budgetary frameworks, we are already thinking about the budget process and how it works. At the moment, the Government has a ten-year horizon for its economic forecasts but in the Stability Programme Update, SPU, it is budgetary forecasts which go to 2026, which is quite short-term, in a sense. It is also quite high-level. The Government has made some progress in this area and does, for example, give a figure for the cost of maintaining the existing level of service but it is not entirely clear how it reaches that or how it fits together.

It would be very helpful ultimately, we think, to be at a lower level of detail, at the level of Departments, etc., and to set out plans that would be consistent with its overall plans so that one could see how it all fits together. The danger is where one just sets a high-level target but that it is not connected to anything underneath. That is very helpful in respect of much of what we have been discussing today, which is about making choices. Looking ahead over five years or ten years, we know that we have high pension costs coming - we do not know what they are but they are going to be higher - there will be climate costs, there is the implementation of Sláintecare and issues around health, and there are many other things there. There are also some big investment needs. The idea is that these things help to strengthen planning, which may be good thing from many other perspectives.

With respect to the public finances, we would focus the discussion on choices because if in five years, we are going to have more of this, including how we will pay for it and whether we are going to have less of something else.

That is very much the kind of process which, in a way, the European rules are trying to move towards by having a more medium-term framework rather than this annual question as to whether we comply with the rules, and what can we spend an extra "whatever it is" on budget day? It is that strategy which is important.