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

Obviously, there is always a desire in any government that public services will be very good, especially education, health, keeping the streets safe and so on. We have gone through a period where we had to be very careful about the amounts we were dedicating to such expenditure because we had to consolidate on the expenditure side, as well as on the tax side. We are still operating under expenditure ceilings which will make it difficult. As well as the expenditure controls which the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, exercises over different Departments, I am responsible for the expenditure ceilings within which Ireland must operate. These are quite a restrictive set of rules.

The Deputy asked me earlier how much the improvement on the deficit would be if growth were 1% better. The rule of thumb is that for every 1% improvement in growth, the deficit is reduced by 0.5%.