Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party)
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That is interesting. I think of Irish Governments as particularly resistant to anything that constrains their political power in terms of budgets, but that is a good point. Staying with that issue the council's submission refers to the Government’s forecasting three years ahead. Obviously, this committee has been tasked with that medium-term budgeting of three to five years ahead. I take the point, and it is relevant, that these have been the worst few years in a way. We have gone from Covid to the war in Ukraine and a cost-of-living crisis, so in one way it is the worst time to talk about it, while also being probably the best time to talk about it because there is significant disruption. Now is the time to make rules for when there is not so much disruption.

From an economic and budgetary oversight point of view, not in terms of policy but in terms of what would make the budgetary cycle more legible to people like the witnesses and groups like theirs, what would they like to see in medium- to long-term budgetary planning? What would make the decision-making more legible and easier to follow?