Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 11 June 2019

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council

Mr. Sebastian Barnes:

One of the things about the prudence account is that it is very much focused on the inter-year Exchequer accounts and is a way of making sure that the discussion that is had every month when the Exchequer returns come out is not driven by the fact there is some corporation tax that could be used somewhere else. It is very focused on that and it does not really have a direct implication for the rules. As Mr. Coffey said, if that money were put into the rainy day fund, because of the way the rainy day fund is currently designed, it might be hard to access that money, as with any other money in the rainy day fund. This is an area to which we think the Government should give some thought in terms of the design of the rainy day fund. We welcome the principle of having a rainy day fund but the way it operates at the moment seems to us-----