Dr. Eddie Casey:

I completely agree. I think that the figure of €18 billion to €19 billion seems likely now, given the shortfall in capital spending we have seen in areas like transport and housing but also on current spending areas that were linked to Covid. There was a large contingency for Covid-related spending in the areas of social protection and health and that now seems unlikely to be needed even though the level 5 restrictions were put in place, which is encouraging. In respect of the lower bound, it is hard to say but it could be as low as €18 billion. I do not imagine, however, that it could be much lower than that. Again, there are many uncertainties and health spending could still be quite high in December. We do not know what kind of costs linked to Covid or to the effects of the regular flu season are going to be incurred. There potentially are other payments that were missing in the returns, so it is unclear at this stage. There could have been greater transparency on the Covid spending. For example, we would have liked to have seen more costings done on the measures that were introduced and the budget could have done a better job of presenting clear costings on things linked to Covid.