Mr. Tom Considine:

Yes, it is yes, basically, because every Minister in a line Department, if you're Minister for Social Welfare, if you're Minister for Health, you're trying ... I'm sure you believe that you need extra resources and if you take, say, in 2000 ... in my witness statement there and in my opening statement, we had huge problems in 2003 and 2004 because we cut back €900 million in 2003 and €500 million in 2004 from the cost of paying for the existing level of service the following year. Now, when it came to the 2005 budget, because the economy ... we were able to do it in 2003 and 2004 because the economy had turned down, but when we came to 2005, the political pressure to ease up on this was enormous.