Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party)
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I will not keep going on that issue because the witnesses have answered that it is as opaque to them as to me.

This is slightly outside the scope of today's session but since it was provided I will go to paper on the Commission on Taxation and Welfare. It is relevant to our discussion of medium-term planning. I enjoyed the paper's bottom-up and top-down approach. That is helpful to us. We have had sessions in recent weeks talking to stakeholders that various chapters relate to. Unsurprisingly, most stakeholders resist the idea of tax increases in their areas. We asked them, and this reminded me of IFAC's top-down approach, if they accepted the principle that we need increased revenue from taxes in this country. Even that was resisted. I will start with a boring question, which is one we talk about a lot in the committee. It concerns the paper's introduction and the issues around data.

For example, the witnesses assert that it is difficult to understand what the recommendations mean and what impact they would have because so much information is lacking - not from the commission, but in terms of information on taxes forgone, pensions, people's private residences and assets after their death, and an assessment of the basic building blocks. Will Dr. Casey discuss this point? The witnesses have been clear, in that we do not know how much income implementing these recommendations would generate for the State. Can we even start to have this conversation without those data?