Mr. Des O'Leary:

The two pack and the six pack referred to "draft budgets", but the status of the budget itself will not change at all. The budget that takes place on 15 October will have exactly the same status as the budget that has always taken place in the first week of December. Equally, there will be no change in the status of the Finance Bill. It should be through by the end of the year. Financial resolutions are introduced as temporary legislation, in effect, to cover things that need to come into effect before the Finance Bill itself comes into effect. If the Finance Bill is coming into effect at the end of the year, there may be a requirement for financial resolutions to be introduced to cover issues that are due to come into effect on budget night or before the end of the year. Things which are due to come into effect at the start of 2014 will be covered in the Finance Bill itself. I would not want to impinge on the area of the Department of Social Protection by saying too much about the Social Welfare Bill process. I have no expectation that the process will be changed by the changes in the budgetary process.