Mr. John McCarthy:

I assure the Deputy that we are concerned whether this would be a windfall or cyclical. That was the origin of our query to Revenue. We have put the letter from the Chairman of the Revenue Commissioners on our website. It states:

based on information derived from engagement of Revenue case managers with the companies, we expect that much of this surplus will reoccur next year. We have informed your Department that it is likely that approximately €300 million of the 2015 surplus from these large groups should not be included in the forecast for 2016.

We have not included it. That gives us some reassurance because we do not deal with the firms.

While I do not want to go down the policy route, the reforms to the Stability and Growth Pact in 2011 introduced the concept of the so-called expenditure benchmark. The rationale for this is that cyclical or one-off receipts cannot be spent. That is prevented by law. There is no question of repeating the mistakes of the past by using these receipts, windfall or not, for permanent increases in expenditure.