Mr. Robert Watt:

There are various iterations of the budget. The way the negotiations tend to go is that we try to work out what we think is the overall need, the existing level of service, ELS, and that involves a back-and-forth exchange between officials in our Department and the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. Then there are discussions about new developments, so there are different elements of it. It has become more complex because of the core funding and the Covid funding. At the last committee meeting where I think there was some discussion about this, we set out what we thought were the demands on the system this year and then what we needed next year in terms of the ELS.