Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

We are in a position to do so because our overall public finance position has greatly improved since we have had ten of the last 11 budgets in surplus.

When one meets a downturn, as we are meeting it, the ability to accommodate that through deficit is possible but we must work within our framework. We must recognise that our responsibility during the course of the remainder of this year is to work within the agreed spending limits we have set ourselves and ensure that the corrective action we take is such that we can devise during the course of the Estimates campaign a strategy for 2009 and beyond.

It is important to point out that the ESRI, which has had the most pessimistic forecast for this year, makes the point that, while in the short term we face that challenge, it acknowledges the underlying strength of the economy, the ability to return to growth rates of 4% over the medium term once we get over this present difficulty.

Those are the facts of the situation in terms of the context in which we must operate, and to suggest that this economy has suddenly become a poor or bad economy overnight is not correct, is not an accurate assessment of the situation and is basically a consistent political charge which is not backed up by the facts.

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