Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

As a former member of Government, the Deputy will be aware that until the deliberative process is completed regarding a budget, the Government has to deal with that itself in its own time. What is different in respect of the question raised by the Deputy is we have had an extensive examination of every area of expenditure and very significant proposals have been suggested as part of the response to meeting the budgetary deficit. That is available to us and a great deal of work has been done on that. The contention is there is a dearth of information regarding what choices we can make but the contrary is the case this year and there will be very few places for any of us to hide.

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