Mr. Sebastian Barnes:

No, it is not, really. I respectfully disagree. A very significant thing happened last autumn when the Government set out a new spending rule. We had advocated for this for a long time. It seems to be a fundamental shift in the way in which the budget is dealt with. In the past, the Government essentially relied on some decision it took over the summer. It would come up with some number, whether it was €2 billion, €3 billion or whatever, which would be its target in the summer economic statement. Exactly where that number came from was never very clear and it changed from year to year.

What it did last year was a fundamental change. It essentially moved to a more rules-based system and it basically said it would target this core measure of spending and increase it by 5% every year. It judged that to be the sustainable rate of growth of the economy and the tax base. That would help to stabilise the economy by having a smooth rate of spending and it would also help to bring debt down, which was needed. That should be viewed as the real target. It has not really changed, except that in the summer economic statement - rightly in our view because inflation is so far away from the assumption of under 5% - the Government gave itself a bit more space by going to 6.5%.