Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister and wish to respond briefly to what he has said. On the indexation point, I agree with the Minister. I do not think it should be automatic and that is not the point I was making. I believe it is a political decision, so we are agreed on that. The point I was making is that, regardless of whether it is an annual budgetary decision, the figures we have from IFAC clearly show something that we need to understand. Were we to index payments for the next five years, in other words, increase payments in line with the rate of inflation to avoid any real decreases and keep things in real terms exactly as they are today, IFAC's analysis indicates that we would have to use up everything that is projected for increases in current expenditure. Does the Minister accept that?