Mr. Michael Tutty:

The reason we are highlighting this in our recent report is that there was an extra €700 million in expenditure shown in budget figures for general Government that had not been there when the stability programme update was published in the spring. We have been trying to find out what that expenditure is and where it comes from. We are told it is in the local authority and approved housing body area and that the bulk of it seems to pertain to approved housing bodies but we cannot get details on that at all. We have regarded the money as an extra €700 million that is being pumped into the economy through public expenditure next year beyond what was talked about on budget day. What was done on budget day was in line with what we expected and what the Government had said it was going to do but we are still trying to work out where the extra €700 million comes from. Approved housing bodies are obviously good if there are more houses being built but it is the overall level of expenditure on a general Government basis that we are or should be looking at because the fiscal rules are all set in general Government terms, not in Exchequer terms. We are highlighting that the extra expenditure is occurring and we are still trying to work out what exactly it is. As Mr. Casey was saying, we would like to see more transparency in the figures published on budget day so we will not be fishing around trying to find this in future years.

It is inevitable that the budget concentrates on the Exchequer. Even the figures for the end of November issued yesterday are Exchequer figures rather than general Government figures. The walk from Exchequer to general Government is important from the point of view of the overall economy and our fiscal rules.