Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The Taoiseach has not given me a broad breakdown of the €440 million. Is he taking personal responsibility for this? Who will be responsible for a failure to meet the 3% reduction in the public payroll that he mentioned? The second page of the document states that the parameters of the exception for the health and education sector are to be agreed by the Departments concerned with the Department of Finance. We were told in March this year that every Department had carried out a detailed report on its fiscal position. Why is this document full of vague generalities? The statement on the second page means that there is no agreement between the Departments and that the Taoiseach has been unable to get one.

Of the €19 billion spent on the public payroll, €14 billion refers to health and education. That means that the Government will get €150 million from the 3% reduction outside health and education. Where is the remainder to come from? Is it a fact of life that the Government will not now reach the 0.54% of GNP target for overseas development aid? Is there not a robbery of the overseas aid development budget in this document? Can the Taoiseach give a guarantee that the Government will meet the figures set out for overseas development aid in last year's budget?

The Taoiseach stated that further expenditure on the acquisition of accommodation for decentralisation will await detailed consideration of the reports from the decentralisation implementation group. Does that mean that this is effectively dead unless a contract has been signed for land acquisition?

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