Mr. Charlie McCreevy:

-----and I've also given the figures regarding expenditure as percentage of GNP. That speaks for itself. But I'm also saying quite openly, anyway, is the Department of Finance would say, "If we don't get this process started and put down some particular figures into these boxes we'll never get any type of order when it comes to the final Estimates." Because when ... the Estimates demands that come from Departments are usually ginormous and way above our ... the indicative allocations. And that was the situation every year during my term and pre my time and post my time and the only year where I got something different was in 2003 when I actually went lower than the figure that the Department wanted to. By the way, I know that in some of the earlier evidence of the committee is that the Department contended after my 2003, 2004 budgets, is that the line Departments were complaining that I had left them at least €2.1 billion short in the moneys that they needed to provide for existing services. I accept that as well because I went in 2003 and 2004 in very, very heavily on Departments in order to get back to a better baseline for the future. That's what I did.