Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Yes. Thank you very much, Chair, and you're very welcome, Tánaiste and Deputy Rabbitte. Tánaiste, can I ask you, as the architect of the Labour Party's financial and economic policy leading into the 2007 general election, and if I can take you to the agreed budgetary platform with Fianna Gael, which will be put up on screen there now. And essentially, the Labour Party was proposing going into that election that over the following five years that current expenditure would increase by €17.4 billion, capital expenditure by about €3.5 billion. You were proposing a tax package of tax reductions of €2.4 billion.

So, in total, a package of about €23 billion over the following five years. And it was based on an assumption of economic growth from the Department of Finance and ESRI of in the region of 4% and you were recommending that current expenditure would grow at double the rate of economic growth over that period. So, how can you claim - if you do claim - that the Labour Party's proposals going into that election were any less pro-cyclical than the outgoing Government at that time?