Economic Policy
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-18
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Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

I take the point. It would have been optimum to have an opportunity to debate it before the recess. We did make an intentional decision not to publish this earlier in the year. I was not the Minister of Finance but I was involved in the decision as a party leader. The rationale behind it, which I think was correct, was to wait and see what the international environment looked like from a tariff point of view. There was different debate and different commentary on this and we decided to publish a summer economic statement that had a one-year horizon. This was different from previous years. We decided to publish the budget. When there was a degree of trade certainty - insofar as there ever is in this world - or certainly more than there was earlier in the year, it gave us more confidence to publish a fiscal strategy that is a binding document. There will be plenty of time for the Oireachtas to interrogate it. I am very happy for Opposition spokespeople on finance to be provided with any briefings they require. It did need to go to the Cabinet this week. It went to Cabinet and it will be published this week too.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:29+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-18