John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Coffey and his team for their public service. Representatives from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council have been with us on several occasions since this committee was formed. This sounds like this Government's "soft landing" moment. Everything said today has been said on the last two occasions the witnesses have appeared before us as well. The remarks on corporation tax have been stated on three occasions. I notice that the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, tweeted today that he will take the advice of the IFAC. He also wrote that such advice was dismissed in the past and there were consequences as a result.

This advice, however, was simply not available in the past. All of the big agencies predicted a soft landing in the past, with the exception of Morgan Kelly. The IFAC has been consistent, along with the EU Commission, the International Monetary Fund, IMF, the ESRI and the Governor of the Central Bank. Representatives from all of those organisations have been before this committee. There have been two common themes in what the IFAC has been stating in the last three years. The first is the over-reliance on corporation tax. The second, in the last two years, was the Government's aligning itself to a benign Brexit scenario.

There is an interesting aspect to the fact that the Minister for Finance intends to heed the advice of the IFAC. He appeared before this committee two weeks ago and he got very strong advice from his Secretary General in respect of broadband. The Minister was pressed repeatedly on that issue. The advice supplied to him included mention of risks to the reputation of the Government regarding economic management and competence and, indeed, the Government's reputation in general. The Minister for Finance is still adhering to the view he is taking on the broadband issue, however.

That is the context for my questions. As with everybody who appears before us, the language used concerning corporation tax is very soft. It includes words such as "could be", "maybe" and "possibly". Why can the IFAC not tell us why corporation tax is going up and why it may go down?