Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

In fairness, there was a series of crises. including inflation at 10%, Covid and the war in Ukraine,which precipitated and necessitated Government decisions and that cumulative impact created a 9% increase in expenditure. That level of expenditure over the next five years is not a sustainable position. What the medium-term expenditure framework sets out is where we have particular pressures, having to plan for that and budget for them in any given year and that is what we are planning to do.