(Cavan-Monaghan): I take it that when the Minister speaks about a saving of £45 million between now and the end of the year he means an overall saving taking one Department with another. Am I right in thinking that indications so far suggest that that will be very difficult if not impossible to achieve? For the first six months of the year we appear to have overspent. We appear to have borrowed as much as we anticipated would be needed in an entire year, but the Government say that due to buoyancy between now and the end of the year they will not alone make their target for the second six months but will retrieve what they have overspent in the first six months. Furthermore, am I right in thinking that there are several Departments, including that for which I am spokesman, the Department of the Environment, for which substantial Supplementary Estimates have already been introduced to deal with overspending of one sort or another? The Minister said it was because the Estimates were not large enough. Be that as it may, the Government adopted those Estimates when they came into power. They could have altered them but they did not. They are their Estimates now. They rejected them in January of this year and in the March budget they adopted them.
In the Department of the Environment alone there is a very substantial Supplementary Estimate to pay for additional sums given to county councils here and there all over the country and for other things. Does not all that suggest that the Government are really gambling in a reckless way, hoping that they will back a winner? They are suggesting that they will have this saving overall when all the indications are there that at the end of the year they will be heavily off target on all sides.