Léim ar aghaidh chuig an bpríomhábhar
Gnáthamharc

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 12 Dec 2019

Vol. 991 No. 3

Estimates for Public Services 2019: Motion

I move the following Supplementary Estimates:

Vote 6 - Chief State Solicitor's Office (Supplementary)

That a supplementary sum not exceeding €5,000,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2019, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Chief State Solicitor.

Vote 7 - Finance (Supplementary)

That a supplementary sum not exceeding €21,200,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2019, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Finance, including the Paymaster-General's Office, for certain services administered by the Office of the Minister and for payment of certain grants.

Vote 9 - Office of the Revenue Commissioners (Supplementary)

That a supplementary sum not exceeding €4,104,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2019, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Revenue Commissioners, including certain other services administered by that Office.

Vote 12 - Superannuation and Retired Allowances (Supplementary)

That a supplementary sum not exceeding €1,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2019, for pensions, superannuation, occupational injuries, and additional and other allowances and gratuities under the Superannuation Acts 1834 to 2004 and sundry other statutes; extra-statutory pensions, allowances and gratuities awarded by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, fees to medical referees and occasional fees to doctors; compensation and other payments in respect of personal injuries; fees to Pensions Authority and other professional fees, miscellaneous payments, etc.

Vote 17 - Public Appointments Service (Supplementary)

That a supplementary sum not exceeding €470,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2019, for the salaries and expenses of the Public Appointments Service.

Vote 20 - Garda Síochána (Supplementary)

That a supplementary sum not exceeding €17,500,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2019, for the salaries and expenses of the Garda Síochána, including pensions, etc.; for the payment of certain witnesses’ expenses, and for payment of certain grants.

Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Supplementary)

That a supplementary sum not exceeding €33,300,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2019, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Justice and Equality, Probation Service staff and of certain other services including payments under cash-limited schemes administered by that Office, and payment of certain grants.

Vote 26 - Education and Skills (Supplementary)

That a supplementary sum not exceeding €68,000,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2019, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Education and Skills, for certain services administered by that Office, and for the payments of certain grants.

Vote 28 - Foreign Affairs and Trade (Supplementary)

That a supplementary sum not exceeding €1,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2019, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and for certain services administered by that Office, including grants and contributions to International Organisations.

Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment (Supplementary)

That a supplementary sum not exceeding €1,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2019, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, including certain services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain grants.

Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Supplementary)

That a supplementary sum not exceeding €19,424,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2019, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, including certain services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain grants and subsidies and for the payment of certain grants under cash-limited schemes and the remediation of Haulbowline Island.

Vote 31 - Transport, Tourism and Sport (Supplementary)

That a supplementary sum not exceeding €10,000,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2019, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, including certain services administered by that Office, for payment of certain grants and certain other services.

Vote 32 - Business, Enterprise and Innovation (Supplementary)

That a supplementary sum not exceeding €1,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2019, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, including certain services administered by that Office, for the payment of certain subsidies and grants and for the payment of certain grants under cash-limited schemes.

Vote 35 - Army Pensions (Supplementary)

That a supplementary sum not exceeding €1,900,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2019, for retired pay, pensions, compensation, allowances and gratuities payable under sundry statutes to or in respect of members of the Defence Forces and certain other Military Organisations, etc., and for sundry contributions and expenses in connection therewith; for certain extra-statutory children’s allowances and other payments and for sundry grants.

Vote 37 - Employment Affairs and Social Protection (Supplementary)

That a supplementary sum not exceeding €100,000,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2019, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, for certain services administered by that Office, for payments to the Social Insurance Fund and for certain grants.

Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary)

That a supplementary sum not exceeding €338,055,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2019, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Health, and certain other services administered by that Office, including grants to the Health Service Executive and miscellaneous grants.

Vote 40 - Children and Youth Affairs (Supplementary)

That a supplementary sum not exceeding €15,000,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2019, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, for certain services administered by that Office and for the payment of grants.

Does the Minister wish to comment on the proposals?

I am just moving the motion.

In that case, I call Deputy Cowen.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss these proposals, even if the Government would rather we did not do so.

There is 45 minutes set aside for the debate.

In case the Minister does not know, these are Supplementary Estimates for public services to authorise the relevant Departments to spend more than was budgeted for in budget 2019. My party will be abstaining on the motion. Fine Gael likes to tell itself and the country that it is responsible in its management of the public finances, but the facts are clear and they tell a much different story. This year, the Government has gone over budget to the tune of nearly €634 million. Since 2012, Fine Gael has overspent on budgets by a total of some €6.9 billion. In 2018, the Department of Health alone needed an extra €654 million; this year, it has gone over budget by €330 million. The Fiscal Advisory Council gave a stark warning recently regarding the Government's handling of the public finances, observing that without the temporary element of corporation tax receipts, Ireland would potentially be in breach of the fiscal rules. The council's report further states that the Government has allowed spending to drift upwards in recent years, especially in 2018.

All of this overspending is being paid for by an explosion in corporation tax, which we all know is temporary in nature. Of the €11 billion or so taken in corporation tax, 45% comes from just ten multinational groups. If those companies leave the State, there will be a massive hole in the public finances. The Taoiseach has told us that this hole would be filled by property-related taxes such as stamp duty. Have we learned nothing from the past? It is extraordinary that the Taoiseach seems to be suggesting that a house construction boom may be necessary to plug the hole in the public finances that a fall-off in corporation tax would leave. The Government does not seem to understand that making permanent expenditure commitments on the back of receipts that may prove temporary leaves us extremely exposed. That applies to stamp duty receipts as it does to corporation tax from multinationals. In addition, we have seen massive overspends on projects such as the national children's hospital and the national broadband plan.

Fine Gael is adept at throwing accusations at Fianna Fáil. It is past time that Members opposite had a good luck in the mirror and recognised that they must investigate the risks they are taking as a consequence of their approach to managing the public finances. The Government must address the sorry slide that has continued over the past eight to nine years.

With the permission of the House and Deputy Pearse Doherty, who is due to speak next, I call the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, to make a statement on the proposals before the House.

I apologise for being delayed in getting to the Chamber for the debate on this motion. The Revised Estimates Volume 2019 sets out total net voted expenditure for the year of €53.9 billion. On budget day, the requirements for a number of Supplementary Estimates for 2019 were set out in the 2020 expenditure report. The total amount proposed in respect of substantive Supplementary Estimates amounts to €634 million. This is below the €660 million estimated requirement set out on budget day and reflects certain minor expenditure developments in the intervening period. In total, 13 substantive Supplementary Estimates and technical Supplementary Estimates are required in 2019.

As set out in the 2020 expenditure report, there will be a 100% Christmas bonus for social welfare recipients in 2019. Approximately €17 million of that amount will be paid from the Social Insurance Fund and this element will not require a Supplementary Estimate. However, a Supplementary Estimate of €100 million is required by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection to meet the Exchequer element of the bonus.

The justice Vote group requires Supplementary Estimates of €51 million in total. Of this, €17.5 million is required for the Garda Vote as a result of security costs associated with the visits of President Trump and Vice President Pence. Further to this, just over €33 million is required for the Department of Justice and Equality Vote due to pressures relating to the provision of asylum seeker accommodation.

The 2020 expenditure report set out the requirement for an additional €335 million for health services in 2019. In addition, the amount being provided today includes a further €3 million in respect of Brexit-related health infrastructural costs. The additional funding being provided for today accounts for 2% of the original overall net health allocation for 2019. In comparison, a 4.4% increase above the original overall net allocation was provided to the health sector last year by way of a Supplementary Estimate.

A Supplementary Estimate of €4 million is being provided to Revenue to meet costs related to Brexit infrastructure at the ports and Dublin Airport.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine will receive a Supplementary Estimate of just under €20 million primarily in respect of Brexit infrastructure. In addition, the reallocation of resources in the Vote will ensure that provision is made for all expenditure pressures, inclusive of the rural development programme. It is expected that this amount will be offset by higher than anticipated EU receipts.

As set out in the 2020 expenditure report, there are various pressures on the Education and Skills Vote, necessitating a Supplementary Estimate of €68 million for 2019. This relates primarily to pay and pensions pressures, as well as school transport costs.

As in previous years, the increase in the defence Vote group ceiling, required to accommodate the Supplementary Estimate for army pensions, is expected to be offset by underspends elsewhere in the Vote group.

There are several other substantive Supplementary Estimates required, including €21 million for the Department of Finance in regard to the settlement of aviation-related legal cases, as well as €10 million of additional funding for the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. The Chief State Solicitor's office requires a Supplementary Estimate of €5 million due to higher than anticipated legal fees arising from a number of long-running court cases. There are also pressures arising in the Department of Children and Youth Affairs in respect of the Child and Family Agency, requiring a Supplementary Estimate of €15 million.

Due to pressures on both pay and non-pay administrative costs, an additional €470,000 is required by the Public Appointments Service.

Finally, several technical Supplementary Estimates are required this year, including for Vote 12, superannuation and retired allowances. This is required to provide for €5 million of potential additional costs relating to public service pensions that will be offset by additional receipts. Other technical Supplementary Estimates were required by the Votes for the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation, the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. As is usual, it is expected that there will be savings in some areas across the system which will partially offset the Supplementary Estimates.

The additional expenditure provided by way of Supplementary Estimates amounts to 1.2% of the net voted expenditure allocation for the year. This represents a responsible approach towards ensuring that public services are adequately funded to meet Government's key social and economic objectives of protecting the vulnerable in society and creating the conditions to support growth in employment.

The Estimates presented before the House today make a complete and utter mockery of the budget process. Today, in less than 45 minutes, the House is deciding to allocate an additional €634 million of expenditure which was not accounted for in the Government's budget. That is the equivalent of the unallocated amount in any of the budgets we have dealt with in the last several years. When we do that there is a lead-up process, with three days of discussion before budget day. This really clarifies that this Government is completely out of its depth when managing the public finances. Deputy Cowen asked if the Government had learned anything from the mistakes and disasters of the previous Fianna Fáil Government. It appears that it has not. We still have budgets that run way beyond what is projected. This underlines the fact that the Government is not budgeting adequately in some areas. It is not just me who has said this. The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, IFAC, has repeatedly criticised the Government, saying its projections for expenditure in certain Departments lack credibility and are unrealistic. Here we are again today, looking at a Supplementary Estimate for the Department of Health which totals €338 million. This is akin to what happened last year. The Department has seen an average overrun of €500 million in each of the last five years. We were told that one of the measures introduced in the bright new dawn of the confidence and supply agreement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil would be credible budgeting for health. However, Fianna Fáil has supported every single budget here and has kept the Minister for Health in office. Unfortunately he only exists as Minister for Health because of the support of the Fianna Fáil Deputies.

The Government is treating the public finances in an inappropriate manner. It expects to come before this House and ask us to approve, in less than an hour, expenditure of almost €750 million which was not budgeted for. Where does that money come from? It comes from unsustainable medium-term and short-term resources represented by corporation tax booms. The Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, has highlighted the folly of depending on this type of tax to pay for recurring current expenditure, which Sinn Féin has warned of for many years. Our view is that the current boom in corporation tax windfalls must be invested in the long-term security of our State by meeting our needs in housing, telecommunications, roads and physical infrastructure. The Government is using these resources, which are unsustainable in the long term, to fill holes in the health budget. Users of the service do not see any benefit or enhancement as a result of the additional resources the Government puts in.

The reality behind these figures is the dysfunction in how the Government deals with funding the HSE and the health service. As a result of not funding this service properly, we now have a situation where people who can be cared for at home at a fraction of the cost are in acute hospitals. Well-paid and well-educated consultants cannot carry out operations and procedures because there are no recovery beds for their patients. Professionals are not able to carry out their work because of a lack of hospital capacity. Consultants are being paid astronomical figures as locum staff because hospitals are not allowed to employ full-time HSE consultants. The same applies for nurses. The result of this lack of prudent financing and proper budgeting and the failure to allocate proper resources to the Department is huge underinvestment.

It is clear that the Government has learned nothing from the past and the mistakes of Fianna Fáil. The only difference is that Fine Gael is not taking dodgy donations from a Galway tent. When it comes to relying on unsustainable tax revenues to fund repeating expenditure, the Government has learned nothing.

I refer to the distress caused by this Government in the areas of health and housing. It is really shocking to read the figures in relation to the Department of Health where yet again the Government has introduced a Supplementary Estimate plus other funding of almost €500 million. The Minister for Health has failed to fulfil his responsibility. Despite the fact that the total expenditure on health is now around €17 billion, the Government seems to lack the competence to address the services in our crowded hospitals, the children without pain relief and the multiple other problems that afflict the health service. The vast overruns entertained by the Government in its management of the national children's hospital project have caused complete dysfunction in other areas of the health sector which now lack vital funding.

Incredibly, despite the spending listed in this year's budget there will be no increase in pensioners' incomes next year. There will be no increase in retirement pensions, the invalidity pension or the blind welfare allowance. I could name 28 social welfare payments which have seen no increase. There were four or five small changes to social welfare and other weekly payments. It is an astonishing failure of performance. The Government should not think that pensioners and other social welfare recipients will forget it, particularly when the Government constantly talks in stellar terms about statistics showing we are the third richest nation in the world or the European country with the most money. Despite this, we cannot increase social welfare payments by €5 a week. That is really distressing. This is the first time this has happened since 2014, when there was a very clear resumption of social welfare increases, including the restoration of the Christmas bonus which Fianna Fáil had abolished.

The Minister of State has come here with the Government accounts. We still have not received any serious explanation in accounting terms of how €24 million paid in taxes by airlines was refunded and recorded as consultancy fees. Could the Minister please explain how such a misstatement of accounting information was included in the Supplementary Estimates?

I still have not heard an explanation that satisfies me. As somebody who has worked in the accounting field, I must confess that I no longer believe the health accounts. IFAC did not disagree with me when we discussed that a week ago.

What I will say next provides a stark contrast. I was in the Phoenix Park last night with the OPW which, with Fáilte Ireland, spent €400,000 on a consultancy exercise on the park that repeated one that had been done previously and added nothing new to what we know about the Phoenix Park, its protection and significance. Up the road in Mulhuddart community centre, a group of workers are paid salaries with a contribution of funds from Pobal. Pobal will not pay them the minimum wage. We have no explanation as to why Pobal as an entity is not funded to ensure that community workers who are working hard in local communities are not paid at least the minimum wage. Could the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, give me an answer to that question?

Further up the road in Huntstown and Hartstown, a sum of approximately €300,000 would enable essential fire safety repair works to be carried out. Instead, the OPW and Fáilte Ireland were able to spend €400,000 on consultancy - we do not know the reason for that - on the Phoenix Park, while up the road vital community centres and crèches may be closed because the Government cannot find a way to fund Pobal to carry out the necessary works for fire safety purposes in two community centres. That is due to the incompetence of this Government. To be perfectly honest, people cannot understand the sums, yet the Government fails to deliver.

Fourteen months ago, in the run-in to budget 2019, I advocated additional new net policy spending, including new revenues, especially for the Departments of Health, Education and Skills, Housing, Planning and Local Government, Justice and Equality, and Children and Youth Affairs. However, the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil austerity Governments since 2008 have resolutely refused to fund essential services for people across all those and other sectors of government. Once again, we need large Supplementary Estimates, in this case of €634 million, just to fund the crucial day-to-day operations of hard-pressed Departments and the HSE.

Mr. Paul Reid, CEO of the HSE, told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health in early October that he thought the HSE could break even this year because he had instructed HSE managers to limit overspends by curbing staff levels, overtime and the spend on agency staff. Members know that for the past nine or ten months Mr. Reid and the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, have imposed an embargo on the recruitment of additional staff to provide desperately needed therapies and hospital operations. Despite those measures, we now see in the Supplementary Estimates that Vote 38 needs an additional €338 million for 2019. The bulk of this funding seems to be needed for HSE health and social care services and primary care reimbursement services. At a meeting of the Joint Committee on Health yesterday, Mr. Reid said the overrun at the end of September was almost half that of the same period in 2018 and that the HSE workforce of 138,080 represented 119,473 whole-time equivalent staff. The question we must ask is why Mr. Reid and the HSE board only recently submitted a service plan for 2020. How can we allocate budgets in this House if the HSE and its chief executive do not give us a service plan for the next calendar year? That seems to be an incredible anomaly.

The key problem with supplementary budgets and overruns in the health area is that we know there are horrendous waiting lists for acute hospital treatment. Yesterday, Deputy Micheál Martin referred to there being 200,000 children on waiting lists for health services. It appears that the 2019 and 2018 budgets and previous austerity budgets did not realistically allocate the necessary funding for health, social care and disability services. Does the 2020 HSE service plan, which the Minister and the Cabinet now have, remotely meet the delivery costs of those services or will this Dáil or probably the next Dáil have to revisit Vote 38 for a Supplementary Estimate in autumn 2020, or perhaps much earlier due to Brexit?

The Committee on Budgetary Oversight has been raising anomalies in Vote 38 for the past three years. Dr. Seán Healy of Social Justice Ireland, in a presentation, drew attention to what we all know are the predictable shortfalls in health expenditure. Two or three years ago, the shortfall was more than €800 million. This means the health service had almost €1 billion less than was needed to operate. The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and the Parliamentary Budget Office, PBO, have both drawn attention to the same situation. IFAC defines a prudent fiscal policy as one "where net policy spending growth does not exceed sustainable growth in revenues", but that does not preclude ensuring we have sufficient revenue in our budgets in this House to run a modern, universal and quickly accessible health service.

As colleagues have said, budget 2020 was a regressive, standstill budget for citizens on social protection benefits, assistance and pensions. We might as well not have had a budget, especially for lower paid workers generally. The payment of a Christmas bonus, which I understand amounts to €100 million net in the books, cannot erase the cynical failure by this "Varadkar" Government and its imposition of possible disorderly Brexit costs entirely on the most vulnerable citizens. In terms of transparent management of the public finances, we should decide on Christmas bonuses for the following year and provide for them in the main budget. We should stop this messing and pretending year after year.

In education, an additional €68 million has been provided. The PBO has drawn attention to the demographic bulge, which is moving on from primary to post-primary level. It will possibly peak in 2025 and then move on to third level. I advocated at the Committee on Budgetary Oversight that the additional teachers who may be released by the changes in the demographic bulge should be used to dramatically reduce the pupil-teacher ratio. I welcome that the Committee on Budgetary Oversight has been engaging with larger Departments and that the focus of the committee early next year, prior to the general election, will be on accurate forecasting and management of demographic factors. That is the key point. The committee is rightly concerned about the use of outdated demographic projections in budget 2020 and the need for budgetary allocations to accurately reflect demographic pressures. I hope we will have that and the additional spending that is essential. Perhaps this will be one of the last years we have this kind of charade and we can consign the annual Supplementary Estimates to history and instead have realistic annual budgets year in and year out.

I thank the Deputies who contributed to the debate. I regularly attend Question Time with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe. I read all of the parliamentary questions that come in from other areas. Every day, a new demand for spending is made in the House. In one day, the demands made in just one group of parliamentary questions clocked up hundreds of millions of euro. On the one hand, I understand that people question the process. Some people might oppose a Revised Estimate even if they sat at a Cabinet table where that was the norm. The reality is that demographic changes and pressures arise across sectors every year. That is nothing new. It is also not new that a Government would enter into pay agreements with sectors that must be realised, as happened in health and education.

I have sat in the House beside the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, when he was repeatedly asked if we would guarantee the Christmas bonus. The Christmas bonus costs €279 million. Deputy Broughan is correct and I share his view that we should pay it. That is why it is in the Supplementary Estimate today. On the one hand, there is opposition to a Supplementary Estimate being presented and, on the other hand, Members present a litany of demands for additional expenditure. Previously, we were not able to introduce a €5 increase in social welfare payments across the board. Deputy Burton will be aware that this would cost €300 million. If we were to do that today, we would have a Revised Estimate of upwards of €1 billion. We simply did not have the money to do so this year but we hope to be able to introduce such an increase in the future.

Every single day we come into the Dáil we hear about demands across the health spectrum, in particular in acute care. We have changing demographics. Thankfully, people are living longer. We have burgeoning problems in health. We are trying to recruit additional staff. Even in my area in Limerick we see the opening of additional beds. That cannot happen unless money is available to do it. Sometimes money is not available. At the start of the year, the Minister said there would probably be a need for €660 million and the total requested today is €634 million. This format is nothing new. The Deputies who have questioned the Supplementary Estimates have been around this House much longer than I have. They know that when one is setting out a budget, one does not have a telescopic view to the end of December as to the potential pressures that will arise.

Those pressures have to be paid for, however. Is anybody really suggesting we should not pay the increases factored in by way of pay agreements and that may not have been envisaged at the start of the budgetary cycle? Is anybody really saying the €335 million to go into the healthcare system should not be invested because of the pressures? Is anybody really suggesting an additional €68 million should not be invested in the education system to address a range of demographic issues, such as the recruitment of additional teachers, changes in pay for teachers, the recruitment of additional special needs assistants and the changing of school transport. Those of us from rural areas know how difficult it is to get transport for children. Changes were made this year in this regard. It all costs money.

At the same time, Deputy Broughan is right about the future reduction of the pupil-teacher ratio. I hope that will continue. That costs money also.

This is nothing new. It is to be noted that the funding, €634 million, is less than that for 2018 and about at the level for 2017. It is really a little disingenuous to say this is something new and that it suggests the Government is not in command of its brief. This is the Government responding to pressures that have arisen throughout the year that have to be paid for. We have to pay for these things. We cannot just ignore the fact that there are pressures concerning various elements of expenditure. We are not ignoring the fact that there are areas of under-expenditure. There is under-expenditure that can be factored back in.

There are greater levels of detail. I cannot really comment on the constituency issues raised but I am sure the relevant Ministers will be more capable of answering the questions. I can guarantee, however, that if the State agencies referred to a while ago did not respond positively in engaging with the communities being engaged with, we would have something else to say. Every day I come in here, I listen to questions for the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. Sometimes Members make demands as if there were an out-of-control taxi meter while, at the same time, they criticise the fact that we are today looking for an additional €634 million. In the round, everybody accepts that these things have to be paid for.

Votes put and agreed to.
Barr
Roinn