Mr. Robert Watt:

Let me start from that then. The social welfare Bill and the finance Bill are considered by the Oireachtas and voted on by the Oireachtas. Then we publish in February-March the returns where the Department of Finance submits the returns to the European Commission in respect of the general Government balance and the fiscal position for the preceding year. We then prepare appropriation accounts, finance accounts and so on in the normal way.

We now produce a performance report, which is a new addition that sets out not only the allocations and what we spent in the preceding year, but also the detail of the outputs and outcomes. We published that report in April.

In order to have more dialogue, the national economic dialogue, NED, took place in recent weeks. There, the Taoiseach and Ministers discussed the budget and heard from a variety of interest groups concerning their budget priorities. We will then produce the summer economic statement, SES, which will be published by the Minister next week. It will set out the updated macro view of the economy, where we are this year, the position for 2018 and the broad strategy and the resources that will be available for next year. That will be published-----