Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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First, I will provide a context. From the start of 2014 until the end of 2016, the increase in expenditure is forecast to be 4%, the increase in taxation receipts to be 15% and the increase in GDP to be 18%. Therefore, when we run the comparative figures, the Government is extraordinarily prudent in how it manages the finances of the State. In its recent report, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council said budget 2016 was prudent. Also, earlier in the year it endorsed the forecasts we have made for 2016.

There was a problem in the past and as the Deputy said, the Fianna Fáil led Government was criticised for it. It was criticised for relying on just one sector of the economy, building and development, and for driving that through tax breaks. That became the engine of growth and also the engine of funding the Exchequer, because the argument was that it was building and development that generated the transactional taxes, whether stamp duty, income tax from workers or whatever. However, on this occasion we are growing the economy across all the sectors and job creation figures will show that over the past two years, all sectors have added quite a number of jobs. Therefore, the growth is broadly based.

The Deputy also echoed something that has been repeated elsewhere, that the very strong inflows of corporation tax in 2015 are windfall taxes and that they will not be repeated in future years. I received a letter from the Chairman of the Revenue Commission, which I published, and the letter states that the flow of corporation tax is not cyclical and that it will continue. He said there was a question in regard to approximately €300 million of it, but said that the vast bulk of it would be repeated next year because it comes from increased business activity across the sectors. Whether it is from the foreign direct investment sector or indigenous Irish business, they are all trading more, making more profit and paying more tax.