Mr. Seamus Coffey:

It was done once; I cannot recall the year. One year, the overruns were baked into the budget day figures and were taken into account in the overall budgetary packages. That is going back a number of years. I think it was pre Covid. There was one instance where it was taken into account. On the Deputy's general point, she is absolutely correct about the credibility of the figures. Like Dr. Barrett said, the fiscal council and this committee were set up to assess the Government's stance and budgetary policy. If the documents we are given have numbers that do not bear out what is actually happening, the assessment we do after the budget which will be taken into consideration by the committee is not what is actually happening in the economy.

One consequence of that is that policy can drift away from a sound path. We always give our focus to the future. We are always talking about budget 2026. One concern for us is what happens in 2025. We expect spending to grow by €7.6 billion this year while last year's budget was for it to increase by €3 billion. There is a possibility of further policy announcements for 2025, and while we might get an indication of moderation in spending growth in 2026, it might just be something that appears in the budget documents. As we go through 2026, the same could happen again. We already have a package of €9.4 billion, which gets us up to 6.5% for 2026. If this pattern of overruns continues, that could potentially be higher again. That would go well beyond what is sustainable, particularly with the current low levels of inflation. Our overall budgetary process has to become more credible.