Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the new approach of announcing the expenditure plans here today. The booklet circulated to Members contains 200 pages and in previous budgets that would have been an annex to the main taxation measures. We all know that for this year, next year and subsequent years the main financial consolidation had to happen on the expenditure side as opposed to on the taxation side and that is generally agreed by the majority of people inside and outside this House. That is why it is important to have a detailed examination of the expenditure proposals which will hit every household. We support the approach of coming in here today to deal with expenditure so that people know how they will be affected by health, education and social welfare changes. On 23 June we discussed this and said it was probably the right way to go. Making today's announcement shows we are serious about expenditure control. I welcome the new approach and the emphasis on expenditure issues. We look forward to the day when there will be some expenditure increases. I will come to expenditure increases in a minute because, believe it or not, within that 210-page document the Minister has slipped in a few sly little expenditure increases again for the Government's friends and cronies.

I am glad the Government is accepting that within the overall parameters it can make individual choices. Most of the Opposition parties met the EU-IMF delegation when it was here during the summer and the autumn. Mr. Ajai Chopra made it very clear to everybody that-----

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