Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is no room for taking fiscal risks at this time.  The international situation is far too uncertain.  We have to be in a position to respond to any number of possible economic crises.  The longer term debt target announced yesterday is essentially irrelevant as it is too far out to be meaningful.  What matters is the immediate future and in this regard, a prudent approach is absolutely essential.

It is a pity that the Government has gone from being sceptical about the huge GDP revision for last year to embracing it as a vindication of its policies.  The underlying position is nowhere near as positive and more restraint and less spin are in order. It reveals the lack of a strategic direction that no effort was made in advance of publication of the CSO figure of 26% growth for the country and the Government to have a more realistic model to outline the true underlying position in the economy. The overall fiscal stance must help to underpin domestic confidence and address critical issues which are, undoubtedly, a drag.  The proposed outturn is mildly expansionary and sustainable.

The rainy day fund which we have promoted, on which Deputy Michael McGrath has been consistent in the past two to three years and which the Government proposes to adopt in the next year or two is prudent and should in time, once implemented, ensure Ireland will have one of the better outcomes of any country in meeting our fiscal treaty obligations, although the reservations of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council should be given more serious weight by the Government. It is our sense that the Government has been too dismissive of the council in recent years and that seems to be a continuing trait of the Ministers for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform.

It should be noted that in the pre-budget proposals produced by groups and parties there was no economically credible alternative to the proposed fiscal aggregates. The €25 billion package announced by the AAA-PBP group is welcome because, for the first time, it lays out in detail the incredible anti-worker policies of the hard-left.

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