Mr. John Kinnane:

Yes. That was the reason we moved from the approach in 2021 in the summer economic statement and mid-year expenditure report. What we found was we were generally setting out pre-committed expenditure of about €1 billion each year for the first year of the multi-annual cycle. Then that dropped down to just reflecting demographic provision across the later years but the reality is that it gave rise to a difficulty when we went back and checked across previous budgets. When we looked at the pre-committed expenditure, let us say, of €1 billion and compared that with the ELS calculations that arose following the budget negotiations the amount available was greater than the pre-committed number, which meant that in the SES and the mid-year expenditure report what was being shown as being available for new measures was actually less than what might have been delivered in a budget because those precommitments did not cover other demand pressures that arose to deliver existing levels of service.