Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)

Is there a smell of 2007 or 2008 off the economy and the way in which the fiscal position has been managed over the past few years? I ask this because we have a Government that continues to spend, refuses to broaden the tax base, is investing in infrastructure and is expecting a different outcome. We have a huge concentration of risk in corporation tax. Our dependency on corporation tax is the equivalent of stamp duty in the 2000s. We have Departments with no spending ceilings in the mid-term framework published two weeks ago. We have a situation where every Department is overshooting its budget every year. Is this not redolent of 2008? Outside of the fact that personal indebtedness is not as high and the banks are in a stronger position and much more resilient, is there a corollary between the situation we are in at the moment fiscally and the policy of the Government and the way in which our fiscal position was managed in the 2000s?