Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I thank the witnesses and congratulate Professor McHale on his term as chair. No doubt, he will enjoy his dinner tonight. I thank him personally. I have been sitting across from him for six years now and I thank him very much for everything he has done and wish him the very best.

I have been reading through the council's report and it is worth noting that the materials we got from the secretariat were superb. Whoever did that should be thanked on the record. In reading the report, I would be reasonably happy were I the chief executive of a multibillion euro organisation of some description. I would be quite happy about how things had gone at a macro level - notwithstanding some of the things that have happened - but I would be very nervous about the future. I will go into the detail but I start by asking whether we are now beginning to repeat the budgetary mistakes of the past. We can go into all of the detail, but is it the council's sense at a high level that we are now locking in permanent spending commitments based on what may be quite transient corporation tax returns and so on? Is the council concerned that we are back to a pre-crash era and setting ourselves up for a fall, with the caveat that there are no safety valves this time? There is no further public debt to be borrowed and there are no public sector pay cuts or other cutbacks for companies or households. The airbag is gone, the ABS brakes are gone and we are running on bald tyres as matters stand. Even a small correction would cause the State a great deal more damage because all the shock absorbers are, more or less, gone. Is it the council's sense that we are now beginning to repeat the mistakes of the past and setting ourselves up for the next fall?