Professor Michael McMahon:

Why would we call it windfall and not catch-up if that is the logic? Why is that not part of the national development plan? We do not refer to transfer payments that are funded from corporation tax as corporation tax-funded transfers. We do not talk about capital spending as debt-financed capital spending. We separate the financing and the expenditure for a reason. We do not label things in that way. The NDP is one such plan that has this. The Deputy can argue the timing of it is not right or we could do it in a different way and that is a decision to be made. We on the council argue now is not a great time for us to try to ramp up spending because we would be doing it at a time when we get least value for money. Recognising there is a catch-up to do is absolutely fine, but it can be financed within the normal realm of public finances which is we have revenues and we have expenditure and we work out the net balance. We do not match line to line; that is just not how public financing tends to work.