Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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Without getting into the budget immediately, one fact which may help people in understanding the budget scheduled to be announced on Tuesday, 13 October, is that we normally get the September figures the Friday before the budget is announced. We get these at very short notice and the budget figures sometimes have to be changed over the weekend. We are fortunate that, because of the calendar, these figures came out last weekend so now, ten days in advance, there is more information available for everybody to see in advance of the budget than has been the case in recent years. It is fortunate and helpful that it worked out that way. Figures normally come out on the Friday night before a budget and these can send other figures askew. That will not happen this year. We have a little more information in the public arena as we enter the last week of budget preparations than we normally have and that information is more up to date. The only commitment I will make is that we will publish our forecasts, although it will be spring before we do so.