Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

In radio and television interviews Ministers all adopt the patter that the amount of money being sought through the levy cannot be reduced but, following their leader, there is room for tweaking. What does "tweaking" mean? When will we see it? No one on this side of the House suggested reducing the amount of money to be collected. All that is being asked is that those on low incomes be relieved from the provisions and the shortfall recovered somewhere else along the line. That would be my interpretation of "tweaking" but it could be very different to the Minister's. I would like to hear from the Minister, before we tweak any further, what he and the Taoiseach mean by tweaking.

The other night on "Questions and Answers", the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Deputy Cullen, made it clear there was some room for tweaking. Now it is tweaking time. Will the Minister explain to us what is meant by tweaking?

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