Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are a range of forecasts about growth in Ireland produced by different agencies and authorities at different times. We released growth figures in April and they are operable at present. The next set of growth figures will be released by us in the next couple of weeks. A large of amount of very strong data are coming through for this quarter, especially for the services sector. The Deputy will have seen the export figures and the purchasing managers index. While we have not got a final cut on what the Department of Finance forecasts will be, the trend is that it will be marking up the growth rate for 2012 from 0.7%, which is what we based the figure on, and it will pull back the estimated growth rate for 2013. It is not all bad news. There will be an adjustment upward for 2012 and an adjustment downward for 2013. However, it is not yet finalised so I cannot give the precise figures in advance, but that is the tendency or trend.