Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

Prior to the budget, I furnished the finance spokespersons of the Opposition parties with a great deal of information on the precise position of expenditures and revenues in the State and they are well aware of the position. I believe that while the Opposition considers it to be its duty to hold the Government to account and while its spokespersons put forward certain proposals before the budget that did not stack up in numerical terms - I do not take issue with them in that regard at present - the exercise of briefing the Opposition parties on the budgetary position before the budget was of benefit because it improved the tone of the debate in respect of this budget.

However, one must face facts and must reflect on the realities we face. One major reality is that our borrowing has been reined in at 10.75% or our annual national wealth this year, which still constitutes an extremely large figure. Our expenditure is too high and our tax base was too low. Work has begun in repairing the tax base and as I made clear in my Supplementary Budget Statement, in future, work must focus on expenditure because there is a limit to the amount of taxation that can be exacted in any economy and there is a limit to the amount of borrowing that any economy can undertake. As this applies to Ireland at present, all expenditure must be scrutinised.

A number of Members suggested in their interventions that expenditure on the Department of Social and Family Affairs should be exempt from any such exercise. Although Members are aware of the position, it is important to state again that in the context of the general burden of expenditure in the State, welfare accounts for €21.5 billion of the total. This is a substantial sum of money as the envisaged tax receipts this year before the budget were €33 billion. Consequently, welfare already accounted for two thirds of total tax receipts in the State this year. Therefore, we must reflect on the reason we are in this position.

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