Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is fine if the Minister is saying that that is what will be delivered on budget day. On the existing levels of service, ELS, costs, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council has been critical of the amounts that have been identified in the stability programme update, SPU, and again in the summer economic statement. IFAC has said that they are not realistic given the levels of inflation that we are seeing. So there is a €2.2 billion allocation or a crude 3% of core expenditure, which would have probably satisfied in previous years as inflation was quite linear. Given what we are seeing now surely that number needs to be revised upwards?