Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)

To translate that into very simple terms, in the Irish economy, every 1% reduction in growth rates is 0.5% of GDP. Some 0.5% of GDP up or down generates or takes out approximately €800 million in tax receipts. That is the level of adjustment we made in preparation for this budget. If we had not done the mark down, we would have approximately €700 million extra available to us. We are taking it into account but it is a fallacy to say that the reduction in growth rates in Europe is due to lack of demand or austerity programmes in Portugal, Greece and Ireland because together we represent approximately 6% of the whole outfit. If one looks at the situation in Germany, it had growth rates of approximately 4% but it is back to slightly over 0%. That has nothing to do with any austerity programmes in Germany because there are none.

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