Mr. Tom Considine:

I'd like to stress again, in relation to the strategy set by the Minister and the Department - both of them together - I went to some trouble to set out, for the 2006 budget, how that worked. It started in February. The Department set out its stall ... said, you know, "This is the way we think budgets should be determined for this country: they should be anchored on competitiveness; they should take account of the things that we can see down the road." On that basis, we think gross public ... gross current expenditure should increase by 6.6.%. In the event, the memorandum that went to the Government had a 7.5% figure which isn't, you know, unreasonable. It's from there on in the autumn, engaging with the other Departments, it wasn't possible to hold that line.