Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

When he met the Opposition parties some ten days ago, Commissioner Olli Rehn indicated that he accepted the Government's growth forecast of 1.75%. Yesterday, very shortly after he made that statement, he said he had changed his mind and his view of Irish growth is that it will be 0.9%. Given that the Commission is the one who appears to be acting very toughly in terms of the bailout for the banks and the cost to this country, can the Taoiseach just brush aside Commissioner Rehn's view that growth next year will be only 0.9%? Can he simply put that down to differences in calculating growth between the mainland of Europe and the island of Ireland? When Commissioner Rehn came to Dublin, he met the Opposition parties. He met the Government as well. He said he was standing by the Government's growth forecasts but yesterday he repudiated those forecasts and cut them in half. Is it sufficient simply to say that he counts in a different way? It seems very odd to me. It also seems quite damaging.

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