asked the Minister for Finance the sum total of concessions made since the budget, in particular the deferment of the 5 per cent VAT increase on new houses and the modification of the composite tax on the building societies.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Concessions since Budget.
19.
Since my Financial Statement of 30 January last, I have, in the light of detailed discussions with the interests involved, decided on a number of adjustments which, while minor in the context of the total budgetary picture, are nevertheless of considerable importance to the sectors concerned. The total cost in 1985 of these adjustments as compared with the budget estimates is estimated at £10½ million out of a total tax revenue forecast at £5,704 million.
Even confining it to those adjustments, the projection now for the budget deficit instead of being £1,234 million will be £1,244 million.
I would not agree. I would not propose at this stage to take any specific steps to offset those changes since I take the view that our inspection monitoring of overall budgetary trends through the year will allow me to keep the current deficit broadly within the kind of figures that I set out in my Budget Statement. I am confirmed in that view by our success in doing this for the last two years.
When the Minister uses general terms like "broadly within a kind of deficit", is this in line with previous Government commitments where they were very specific? In his Budget Statement he specifically said that his deficit was up to £1,234 million. Now we are dealing in generalities —"broadly within the kind." Having regard to the extra £10½ million to be added now and to the extra provision that he will have to make, over and above the provision in the budget, for unemployment payment which is based on an average of 217,500 as distinct from 234,000 now, is it not clear to anyone who wants to look at reality that the budget deficit is just an imaginary figure at this point?
That is not at all clear. In fact, in 1983 and 1984 the budget deficit as set out on budget day became, in fact, far less a creature of the imagination than the budget deficits had been during the period of office of the gentlemen opposite.
I am dealing with the budget of 1985. What I am concerned about is the budget deficit of 1985. If the Minister is telling us that he has to make adjustments of the order of an extra £10½ million here and has to find extra money to fund unemployment——
I am not saying that. The Deputy is saying that.
Could I ask the Minister, then, as he is accepting, I think, that he will have to add an extra £10½ million in respect of this — I am sorry, the Minister is not accepting that? Where is the money coming from?
If the Deputy sits down, I shall tell him.
Please do. Would he also tell me, when I sit down, where the extra provision for unemployment benefit over and above what he provided in his budget at 217,500, which is now 234,000, will come from to keep within his budget figures?
On the second part of the Deputy's question, this is a separate question but I can deal with it in the same general way. I do not accept his allegations, in any case. I have told the Deputy that I do not expect that it will arise in the way that the Deputy claims.
The Minister will not get the money.
At the same time what I am saying is that, while I have made these adjustments amounting to about £10½ million for this year, at this point I am quite confident that, given the systems which we have in operation for monitoring expenditure and the changes in budgetary aggregates during the course of the year——
Generalities, generalities.
——we would end up with a current deficit pretty close, up or down, to within a very small margin of the kind of figure that we have put out. I would remind the House that the budget deficit last year — for the first time in, I think, six years — came in as an outturn at a figure less than the deficit which had originally been forecast on budget day and that in the previous year, 1983, the budget deficit was within a whisper, necessary adjustments being made——
The Minister was supposed to eliminate it altogether. Has he forgotten that?
It was within a whisper of what had been forecast at budget time.
Never mind your whisper. You had promised to eliminate it.
That was in very marked——
This is a feast of prestidigitation.
That was in very marked contrast with what had happened between 1977 and 1981 and what, indeed, happened——
Add the unemployment situation to it. A Cheann Comhairle, I want to ask the Minister one final question on that.
I call Deputy MacSharry.
Arising from the Minister's earlier reply that the budget deficit is less important now than it was when Deputies on this side were in Government, could he explain exactly what his reasoning for such a statement is in view of his stated election manifesto statement of eliminating the budget deficit over four years? Now this year's budget deficit will stand at roughly the same percentage of GNP as it did in 1982.
The answer is that the Minister eliminates by increasing.
I did not make the statement that Deputy MacSharry attributed to me at the very beginning of his question.
He did. Withdraw it and I shall be happy.
What I have said in relation to this specific question is that we can be far more confident now that the budget deficit figure as given on budget day is going to be pretty well the outturn figure, and I am far more confident of that fact than had been the case when the gentlemen opposite were in office.
That is not what the Minister came into Government on. He was to eliminate the budget deficit altogether. He is hoping that the people will forget.
That is what the Deputy does not like about it.
Could I ask the Minister, to whom eliminating means increasing, if monitoring now is the new answer and simply by monitoring you can write off £10½ million? If monitoring is so effective, would the Minister not agree to monitor the other £12 million for the building industry and let us assume that by that lovely euphemism of monitoring——
A question, please, Deputy.
The Minister did not answer my question in relation to unemployment.
That is not a question. It is playing with words.