Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

While I fully agree with the Minister of State about respecting the independence of the CSO, his Government sought the excision of tobacco from the calculation of the CPI. The Minister for Finance said as much in his budget speech. Given that no Member of the House is trying to traduce the independence of the Central Statistics Office, the Minister of State and I are not in dispute on this matter. I heard him state, however, that as soon as the pay terms of the latest partnership agreement — patriotically termed Towards 2016 — expire, the Government will raise the issue again and take into account the contribution tobacco makes to inflation. While I do not know how the Tánaiste, who is briefing the Minister of State on the issue, feels about the social partners being able to obstruct this attempt by Government to artificially reduce inflation, they are correct that it would be an artificial reduction. Is it the position of Government that, having been thwarted on this occasion, it will return to the issue when the pay terms of the current agreement expire?

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