Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

In a recent EU Commission report on public finances in the EU Ireland was ranked a distant last in the area of public management of finances. It was also ranked last and received no score in the area of prudent economic assumptions, which judges how we create leeway for a slowdown and make forecasts. Does he agree that the assumptions in the budget were ludicrous? The budget forecast GDP growth at 3%, that there would be 24,000 new jobs and that there would be 1% more in employment. It also forecast that inflation would be below the EU average of 2.4% but it is now 3.2%. It was also stated that there would be 55,000 house completions. The Minister said house completions would be down by one third on last year but that would mean approximately 52,000 completions so the figures do not add up.

The Minister says he will not provide figures on the Government deficit until budget day. He will provide the figures to the EU by the end of this month but his primary responsibility is to the Dáil and the Houses of the Oireachtas. We have no pre-budget outlook so we should have some indication as to when and how he proposes to bring back the Government deficit below the 3% Maastricht guidelines.

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