Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I thank the Fiscal Advisory Council for this very worrying report. I am long in the tooth here and the witnesses are saying with clarity that we risk making the mistakes of the past. Expenditure is going up by 7% in a year. There is an attitude that we should spend money since it is there. There are possible risks of losing a tax base on the horizon. In the past, it was construction tax revenue. It could now be corporation tax. All of those warnings strike home with clarity. It is funny how things turn. If I recall rightly, approximately a year ago, when we were here for our early autumn meeting, it was not as concerning, by and large. The witnesses changed their stance after the budget when the overrun was €300 million more than the expenditure the Government had projected. The witnesses are now saying that they are even more worried again. That November statement was very stark. They then found another €500 million overrun that we only really discovered when the CSO turned out data. When did those data become available and is this the first statement since the scale of the overrun became apparent?