Mr. John McCarthy:

The numbers from our colleagues in the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government are on a cash basis.

We supply the figures on an ESA 2010 basis, which is the European measure. They are broadly similar but they will never be exactly the same for statistical reasons, which is the way EUROSTAT and ourselves can calculate the figures. I accept the point on the need for prioritisation of water infrastructure. However, as I said earlier to Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, ring fencing reduces the degrees of freedom for the Government. Priorities will obviously change over time and I would argue that the Government needs to retain that flexibility as priorities change, which they inevitably will.

I want to come back to a point raised by Deputy Ó Broin, when I talked about a discretionary revenue reduction in 2017 and a discretionary revenue increase in 2018. I wanted to stress the point that it is purely from a fiscal rules perspective.