Vol. 460 No. 3
132 Mr. D. Ahern asked the Minister for Finance if he had available to him, on or prior to the date of publication of the Book of Estimates, the data contained in the report of the National Treasury Management Agency; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19485/96]
I take it that the report of the National Treasury Management Agency referred to by the Deputy is the end-year information released by the agency on the evening of the last working day of 1995. This information covered details of the full year outturns for 1995 in relation to the cost of debt service for the full year, the amount of debt outstanding at the end of the year and related data. Given that these data were prepared only at the very end of the year, they were not available to me prior to or when the 1996 Book of Estimates for Public Services (Abridged Volume) was published on 18 December, 1995, i.e. nearly two weeks before the end of the year.
