Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I do not want to pick a battle on this issue but I want to make the point that in his opening statement Mr. Barnes said this should be reinforced by enshrining the national spending rule, which is a rule of the Government and not a national spending rule. It has no basis in legislation. It is a benchmark the Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil Government uses, which it has ignored on two out of the past four occasions. Mr. Barnes said it should be enshrined in law. I would argue this possibly strays beyond IFAC's mandate because it is a domestic rule. It is not bound or connected to the EU fiscal rules. I can understand that while it would be appealing I wonder whether it is something to which IFAC needs to give thought, with regard to calling on legislators to legislate for something that is possibly outside its mandate. It is not part of the EU fiscal rules.