Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

-----and decided to endorse the agreement. One of the features of the agreement is that to ensure there is delivery on public service reform, there must be some mechanism to ensure the savings are procured in any event. That is in the national recovery plan and it is confirmed in the EU-IMF agreement.

It is not the only measure in the agreement which ensures budgetary discipline on the part of future Governments. There are many other provisions, for example, the cash limiting of Government departmental allocations on the non-pay side, the appraisal of projects on the investment project side, the restrictions of Supplementary Estimates and the requirement to bring savings forward to future years and not to reallocate them. All of these measures will ensure a path of strict budgetary discipline is followed by whatever Government is elected by the people. Indeed, the measures adopted in the EU-IMF agreement, and confirming what is in the plan, ensure that a path of strict fiscal control will be exercised by any future Government.

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