Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I do not believe so. I thank the Minister for his response. To be clear, I have never accused the Minister or anybody else of breaking the fiscal rules in any way. I was merely conveying to the Minister that the information the committee received prior to the budgetary process was that the original figure was on the upper limit of prudent spending, and the Minister has gone over €200 million beyond that. It is something of which to be aware. It was the information provided to the committee.

In terms of being accountable for the Lansdowne Road agreement and to avoid being back here in the second half of the year with that agreement disintegrating in front of us, nobody disagrees with the Minister. My point is that in order for us to have confidence in working with the Minister and his Department and to do our job, information must be forthcoming as soon as it is available and there must be a transparent process in place. I identified three separate situations where money has become available, even though we were originally informed that it was not available. My point is that this makes it difficult for us to put forward alternative proposals and to scrutinise the work the Minister does, which is the task we have been set.