John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I did not mean to throw out an unfair question to the Minister, but he has invited this committee to make suggestions. He has been putting out a lot of figures; he said, for example, that if the fuel allowance were to go up by a certain figure it would yield €10 million, and mentioned that, of the fiscal space of €1 billion, €660 million would be for spending. He also said the reduction in jobseeker's allowance would yield additional funding. The committee, in trying to form a view on this, would like an estimate of the new money coming into the Department as well as the naturally occurring savings. The Minister asked for suggestions that were affordable, rather than just a shopping list, and it was in that context I asked the question. It was not an attempt to be awkward.