Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As I understand it, a surplus can be used to pay off debt. The limit is not on the amount of the surplus but on the amount by which we are allowed to increase expenditure. Under the fiscal rules we could not use the €3.5 billion for house construction. If we did that, we would be in breach of the fiscal rules. The surplus could be spread over a couple of years. We could not spend it all over one or two years because in doing so we would be breaching the fiscal rules rather than the state aid rules.