Mr. Colm McCarthy:

I thought late last year that the economy might have begun to show a little weakness by now because of the maturity of the recovery. This is year six of recovery. The most recent unemployment rate was 4.4%, which is not far off the all-time lowest rate. I thought there might be a bit of a slowdown but recent figures do not show that. The economy seems to be trundling along just fine.

The UK economy has weakened. In particular, there has been a weakness in business capital formation in the UK which is a vital number for the long haul. That is probably due to uncertainty about Brexit. It was not very strong to begin with and it has weakened since the referendum.

I do not have a clue what form Brexit will take. I do not think anybody in British politics has a clue either so I guess I can be excused. I do not know what the impact on Ireland will be. I fear that the impact, even if it is a soft Brexit, will be negative. It is difficult to see any Brexit outcome that will not leave scars on the Irish economy and, of course, on the British economy.

There should be no giveaways at all in the budget in October. There should be no tax cuts or generous expenditure allocations to anybody, no sweets or gifts for everybody in the audience as happened in the past three budgets. If that is done, there will be some extra latitude to deal with the fallout of Brexit, which is unknowable at this stage.