Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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To take the example Deputy Donnelly gave of the AIB preference shares, EUROSTAT made a decision totally unexpectedly. I still do not know why. It is one of the problems with European institutions that they do not have to explain themselves. We were not notified until around 20 April and we were fortunate to be able to get the change into the SPU at all. If it had been left for another couple of weeks, it would not even have been included. It did have the effect, for technical reasons, of increasing the potential expenditure ceiling and that allows us now to give the extra money to health in the Estimate about which the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, has notified the House. Deputy Donnelly is correct, but on the actual timing of that, if we had brought out the SPU at the end of March, that measure would not have been in it.