Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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Let us go to forecasting. I appreciate the scrutiny work the Department is doing where forecasters have to second guess how the economy will be the following year. It can be disappointing, however, and must be so. Two years ago we, namely, the Government, the Department or the State, forecasted a 3% growth rate for this year. Today, with the consensus arising from the new information of today, Mr. McCarthy tells us the growth rate will be 0%. It is very hard for people. This is the seventh austerity budget and they have been taking it on the neck, time and time again. We have heard all the positive signals and it is very difficult to be positive at times, although there is some positive data contained in this material about the green shoots and turning the corner. Yet here we are, in 2013, with potentially no growth. Perhaps Mr. McCarthy might take me from that point. The SPU update in April suggested we were going to have a deficit target of 7.4%. That was based on a growth rate of about 1.3% this year but it will now come in at 0%. Will we meet the troika targets of 7.5% this year if we have lost 1.3% of growth? We are obviously cutting it very fine to meet that target.