Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will ask my final question and then let in my colleagues.

The point Mr. McCarthy is making is that the end justifies the means, as if to say: "Bugger the other rules and if we get to the point anyway, we will be okay and it does not matter that we have broken the rules on the way." I am not a big fan of the rules, but I just want to understand the position. For us, the expenditure benchmark, when it kicked in, became a baseline from which we worked in each budget afterwards. It became a building block.

Based on the ten-year growth, it allowed us to spend extra. I say that because there is no guarantee that the MTO will be reached, although hopefully it will. Is the Government's position that it is forgetting about the expenditure benchmark, just going for the MTO and taking the view that it does not matter if we breach the rules? If we do not convince the Commission before budget 2018, the baseline for our expenditure benchmark will be recalculated back to a lower position which will impact on the fiscal space that is available in budget 2018. Is that correct? Perhaps that is an opportunity for the Department to clarify to the committee the net fiscal space that is there, especially after the latest pay deal which is going to absorb approximately €180 million of the €500 million to €550 million of available fiscal space.