Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)

We will approach it in a fiscally neutral way. Based on our more recent conversations, the agreement we have with the troika is that the span of the initiative is to become fiscally neutral by 2014. That satisfies it. We are largely talking about what was in the programme for Government. It is a readjustment of the budgetary position to focus on job creation and to try to get more growth in the economy. It is not a big Keynesian initiative. The resources are not available to drive demand in the economy by huge investment. It is just not there, so what we are trying to do is to take a situation, especially in certain sectors to see whether we can get more out of it, in terms of growth and jobs. That is the approach. It is morale boosting and confidence building rather than a huge spend for demand purposes.

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