Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

In regard to the framework that has been set up since February, we came back in June and put forward proposals on those issues. We have doubled activation during the course of this year despite the financial difficulties, and made efforts on the pensions framework, which we intend to publish before the end of the year. In a very difficult situation where there is very little room to manoeuvre I have been seeking to provide the sort of initiatives and responses that bolster the prospect of collective and concerted action among all actors in society to try to pull through this issue. That has always been my approach.

I have also been seeking to point out the scale of the issues involved. I have been involved personally and will be involved again in this matter in an effort to obtain agreement, knowing that on 9 December there are decisions to be taken and they are best taken with the greatest measure of agreement beforehand than not. That effort is being made and will be made on a continuous basis. However, we must also acknowledge the period of time in which we have to do this and the scale of the issue this year, regardless of that other question, it remains the same, that a correction of €4 billion is required. In fairness, Deputy Gilmore publicly agreed with that, as did Deputy Shortall, Deputy Varadkar and Deputy Bruton. From memory, the correction suggested for 2010 in the Fine Gael submission on the April supplementary budget was in the region of €5.4 billion. Those are the facts. The way we spend our money is made up as I have set out.

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