Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

What I am trying to get an answer to, in the context of the two parties in Government having sat down together to revise the programme for Government at a time when there is a hugely important budget due and there are huge problems with the public finances, which we all acknowledge, is not what is the scale of the problem or what are the options but has the Taoiseach agreed with his partners in Government how this will be dealt with? I appreciate that agreement has not been reached on the budget, which will come later. For example, what are the target figures - I raised this yesterday with the Taoiseach - for the adjustment in the public finances? We already know, as it was published in last year's budget and announced last April that the target is €4 billion. The Minister for Finance broke down that figure in the Budget Statement in terms of how much will be savings in public expenditure, taxation and the capital programme.

The Taoiseach let slip that the Government is now thinking of addressing this on a one-third, one-third, one-third basis. Is that what has been agreed with the partners in Government? Has agreement been reached on the big items, including pay, welfare and taxation? The Government had before it two significant reports which would have informed its discussions. Did it agree on what recommendations of the report of an bord snip nua would be advanced? Did it agree on what measures of the Commission on Taxation report would be progressed? None of this is dealt with in the revised programme for Government put before the Green Party conference. It is difficult to imagine that the two parties in Government, having had discussions on revising the programme for Government, would not have agreed how these big issues are going to be dealt with. We have not, to date, heard how they are to be dealt with. I am not asking the Taoiseach for the content of the budget but whether the Government has reached agreement on the broad parameters of how these issues are going to be dealt with.

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