Professor Alan Barrett:

The assumptions underpinning whatever is done should be spelt out and should be clear but it is only one of the issues. I do not know what vision members have of how this will pan out. The potential added value relates to the fact that the budgetary process is carried on behind closed doors to a certain extent at the moment. Members will be in a position to publicly ask people to justify whatever choices they are making. To interrogate, it comes back to information and the quality of the committee's investigation will be heavily dependent on the quality of the information that members have to hand.

I have talked about what the ESRI does. We do a good job at providing good information. It may be partial. For example, it may be that we have been asked to study something in a particular way but it is based on good, rigorous analysis. Members need good quality information that they can use but they should not become totally fixated that the only issues floating around are demographic pressures and inflation. The budget relates to between €50 billion and €60 billion worth of expenditure and taxes and so on. At the National Economic Dialogue, people constantly said we cannot raise tax on labour because that is bad for jobs. Perhaps that is true. For example, if 1% was added to the marginal tax rate, what would that do to jobs? That is an empirical question. Sometimes, a mantra is put out there. Somebody like the good Deputy might have suggested that corporation tax should increase and perhaps it should, but at least the ESRI published analysis last week which showed that if that was done, this is what we estimate the impact would be on foreign direct investment. The Deputy may say that is a price worth paying or he may disagree with the analysis but at least he has a piece of work that tries to set out and answer the question and provide evidence on the issue he is dealing with. My vision of what the committee should be doing is bringing public forum evidence to bear. When the evidence is not there, members will ask people to justify the choices they are making.