Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Ministers and their teams and thank them for joining us. I commend the Ministers on their management of public expenditure and the public finances to date, including the delivery of the last budget.

The point of this committee, as far as I am concerned, is to look long-term at our budgets and where we are going. I found the annual progress report quite helpful and insightful, so I would like to start my questioning on that. It is very much about staying positive, which is all right, but I would like to get the Ministers' opinions on the numbers and on what the worst-case scenario could be. I do not want to overly focus on that but it is what jumped out at me.

The annual progress report notes that public expenditure trends suggest public expenditure is going to increase by 5.3% per year between 2025 and 2029, which is a 42% increase by 2029 compared with 2023. Particularly when it comes to infrastructure, we need to see investment, and we know that. I am calling for that investment, so I am not criticising it at all. At the same time, however, the report also says that without the windfall taxes, we would have a deficit this year of €4.6 billion and next year of €6.8 billion. Obviously, the nature of windfall taxes is that they cannot last. The Apple tax is a one-off as well. I appreciate the two national funds that have been created and the Ministers have done incredible work in getting capital into those. We have concerns about FDI and tariffs, as well as nearshoring or reshoring around the US and the impacts that could have. What contingencies do the Ministers think there will be? What plans do they have for the scenario that the windfall does not continue at the current rate, given that we are also planning to increase expenditure? Indeed, we need to increase our expenditure if we are going to invest in the infrastructure that we need to build houses and roads and see our economy develop over the coming decade and beyond.