Dr. Martina Lawless:

That is certainly our concern. Regarding the slippage from year to year, it is not simply the case that something unexpected comes up in one sector in one year and another sector in another year. We are seeing a systematic pattern of slippage in the same places year after year, particularly in health spending. It is very hard to see how that can be unwound or why it is not taken into account in formulating the projections for health spending. The extra €1 billion that was spent to fund the gap at the end of last year was then baked into the percentage increase received by the Department of Health the following year. A lot of these one-off within-year increases are baked into the projections in the long run. That is one of the causes of the slippage. If it was something dramatic and unexpected in one place in one year and another place another year, one might say that nobody expects the forecast to be perfect. However when the slippage is in exactly the same place year after year questions need to be asked.

There are other places where the slippages are perfectly foreseeable. The Christmas bonus is never included in spending projections at the start of the year. It is within the Government's power to not announce a Christmas bonus from one year to the next but that would be quite unlikely and a fairly considerable policy announcement. A highly foreseeable expenditure issue should be in the expenditure plans at the start of the year.