Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I appreciate that and will move onto another point on which the Minister may pick up at the end. The figures the Minister is presenting for the latter three years have no value to this committee or to external people looking in because they are not credible because, as the Minister says, he will not reduce expenditure by 2.5%. Why then present them in the first place? He still has the flexibility to change the figures but to present figures that we know are rubbish because they all will be increased devalues the work of this committee and the work that is being undertaken by his officials.

I have two questions which I will lump together. IFAC made stinging criticisms of the budget. Did officials in the Department provide the Minister with any of that type of advice? Hopefully they did. I am not sure if the Wright report recommendation has been implemented that all decisions about budgetary matters by officials are written down and are available through freedom of information after a period, but I hope to God that some people are speaking up.

I refer to contingency planning for Brexit and one risk that has been highlighted in the IFAC report. What engagement has the Minister had with Revenue officials? What preparedness is taking place by Revenue officials? At the British Irish Chamber of Commerce meeting that took place late last year, which the Minister, Deputy Creed attended, a senior Revenue official spoke of it doing contingency planning in terms of agricultural products that would need to be checked at the Border. My question is genuine and sincere, now that we are 70 days away from a potential no-deal Brexit, which none of us want to see. Is the Minister aware of Revenue undertaking any contingency plans about checks at the Border or customs controls? We know that when the internal 2017 report was leaked by journalists, the Government told Revenue to stop preparing. We are now 70 days away from Brexit. Is there any preparedness? Is the Minister meeting with officials? Is the issue of Border checks or checks along the Border on the agenda?

Has the Minister had any discussions about that? While I understand that Revenue officials will appear before the committees, at this point in time we have to have an honest discussion about this.