Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

On the Exchequer figures, the tax profile was to be 24% and it was 23% so it is very close to target. Income taxes are up by 5%. As I said about the February figures, the capital gains tax is reduced — it is the property development side that is down. This area has been extremely healthy for the past number of years but other tax heads are pulling it up. Like every economy, since the sub-prime issues of last August have affected the economic cycle of the last quarter and into the first quarter, it has become a more challenging position. However, overall, and providing we keep our expenditure for this year on target and we maintain employment as strongly as possible — obviously there is going to be an increase in unemployment and that has been well signalled and profiled, particularly in the construction sector — we should be near enough to our overall targets for this year. It is a challenge.

On inflation, I already mentioned the main factors of oil prices and interest rates feeding in from last year are not within our domestic control. Therefore, we must work hard on those issues over which we have control. We have actively engaged with the social partners on an ongoing basis, including working with the anti-inflation group which has proved to be successful over the past seven or eight years, to examine ways of reducing domestically generated inflation. That examination has informed the contributions from the Central Statistics Office, the Competition Authority, the National Consumer Agency and the Commission for Energy Regulation with a view to establishing remedial action in these areas. We must continue to do that. It is an ongoing task to try to reduce inflation and not something we simply start and then drop.

On Deputy Gilmore's question on when the pay talks will commence, the plenary meeting on 15 February, which was addressed by me and the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance, provided the basis for the initiation of formal talks, including those relating to the new pay round and the publication of the Employment Law Compliance Bill, which was an important commitment that we honoured. It is a commitment congress viewed as a critical element for the emerging talks. It stated that to us last year and again in February and we honoured that commitment. I understand a number of special conferences, including on the trade union side, will be held in the next few weeks, in approximately ten days time, to enable the parties to debate and improve their negotiations stance. It is therefore likely that the pay talks will commence shortly thereafter. I gave up guessing when they would finish years ago. As Deputy Gilmore will be aware, that has been a prophecy that has not worked too easily. Sometimes the social partners surprise one and the talks finish fairly quickly but on the last occasion, the target date was overshot by several months.

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