Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)

That is fine. I just did not pick up the context. Obviously, this framework was published before the budget. It looked at the overall trend and the fact that in every year of the Minister's term in government, including his time as public expenditure Minister, the Government has broken its own rules on expenditure. I think that is fair to say. It has never once remained within its own 5% expenditure rule. The look back is to inform the future, yet today we are part of a process that looks at over €2 billion in additional spending across Departments. As the Minister for public expenditure who publishes glossy documents to tell us how bad Governments did at staying within budget in the past and who now comes before us looking for €2 billion additional to the budget as part of this process, what does the Minister say about his core role in terms of public expenditure and ensuring there is proper budgeting and value for money? My colleagues mentioned IFAC's claims that the Government is budgeting like there is no tomorrow. We can spend money and invest but the failure to budget for things that are, in some cases, very obvious is a serious issue.