Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 27 May 2021

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council

Mr. Sebastian Barnes:

Those are very good questions. The Chairman is correct that there is a mismatch between the revenue coming in and the level of activity. Much of this activity is occurring in fairly unusual sectors anyway, from a productivity perspective. Regarding what this might tell us about the future, as we discussed earlier, one possibility is that the revenue will move while the jobs stay here. Alternatively, there might be more pressure on the jobs at the same time.

On the data, it is hard to tell. There are confidentiality restrictions in this area for good reasons. A small number of big companies are involved in this activity and, quite rightly, the way these things are handled means that information is not necessarily publicly available. It is a major area of uncertainty. These are big, complex and dynamic companies as well, so it is very hard to know what decisions they would take. It will probably depend a great deal on some of the details. Perhaps Dr. Casey has something to add.