Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

They also indicated their awareness that these decisions will be difficult politically. They noted that this is a coalition Government and that agreement, while difficult, must shortly be made. This tallied with the Minister, Deputy Noonan's, comments after his meeting with troika that any decrease in social welfare rates would be a matter for the Government to decide at budget time. Crucially, he added that the troika has no difficulty with the Government ''substituting one fiscal measure for another one of equal value".

The discovery of an accounting error amounting to €3.66 billion alleviates some of the long-term burden on the State's finances, with overall debt now standing 2.3% lower than previously thought. This reprieve should be used to ease the onerous burden of reducing social welfare expenditure. The new eurozone plan for bank recapitalisation offers the Government an opportunity to extract EU financial support for our bank recapitalisation. Ireland should not be unfairly penalised for having taken the initiative in tackling the bank crisis rather than kicking the can down the road. Part of the rate reduction on our bailout repayments, which was achieved by accident rather than design, should be used to ease the burden of reducing social welfare expenditure.

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