Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

They are generally demand-led schemes. That is how we determine. Demand determines the number of people who take up the schemes. We try to estimate what the demand for any scheme will be at the beginning of any year and during the year through demographics and patterns of demand. For instance, when I was here in June we would have been estimating the six-month demand based on demand patterns from January to June. We then engage with the Department of public expenditure. We have very robust engagement with the Department of public expenditure throughout the process, particularly the run in to a budget. My team of officials here have very regular engagements with that Department around where our day-to-day expenditure is going, where our future expenditure might be going and on any future schemes that we are planning.