Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The target we must achieve is at least 5.1% to be operating in accordance with the programme. For reasons of market sentiment it is probably important to beat the target. At present, without having the full data available to me, I hope to bring in a deficit in the high fours. I think that would be sufficient to give the kind of market confidence we need on exiting. They will also be looking at what is implicit in the programme, namely, that we run a primary surplus in 2014. I hope that if one strips out interest rate payments we will get our deficit either into balance or just on the plus side so that we would have a primary surplus because that would be a very strong signal as well.

While there are targets implicit in the level of consolidation, it is more of a means to an end than a target. The targets are the deficit percentage and the primary surplus. I hope we will achieve both but there is final number crunching to be done before I could be certain of that and then there is the composition of the consolidation, as Deputy McGrath pointed out, in terms of what expenditure cutbacks and tax increases will be put in place and the magnitude of both when combined.

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