Mr. John Kinnane:

When we look at the elements within the ELS, this area was covered earlier. There is €28 billion. We have a €74 billion core expenditure base, €28 billion of which is for Exchequer pay and pensions. There is a carryover impact of the existing public service pay deal, given that there was an increase on 1 March and another on 1 April, about 1.5% to 1.75%. The inflationary impact on €28 billion of expenditure is in that region. About 30% of the base - around €23 billion - goes on social protection, on which there is no price effect because it is impacted by budgetary decisions. When the detailed work was done with the Department of Social Protection on the demand side, it turned out to be a lot lower than we might have anticipated. That is a key driver in arriving at about 2.4%, rather than being closer to the 3% figure. The other thing about the ELS is that it takes a multi-annual view. The problem we had previously with pre-committed expenditure was that there could be €1 billion in year one but when you move into years two, three and four, you have €500 million or €600 million. You are then clearly overstating the amount available for budget measures because each year there will be a carryover and new public service pay deals, which will eat into the amount available for new measures. This is why-----