Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I put it to Deputy Adams that the budget for 2014 has not been signed off on. The budget for 2014 will be signed off on collectively by the Cabinet before next Tuesday. The House is aware that the Minister for Finance deals with the income stream in terms of taxation measures and so on. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform deals with the question of current spending and related issues. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, is engaging with all Ministers individually about the ceilings for their Departments, how the allocation is to be spent, the issues they have raised in that regard and all of that. That applies in the case of every Minister. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, has set out the options or the range he must deal with in terms of taxation measures.

Deputy Adams will be aware that today the Cabinet approved the general structure for the budget. This was a matter for discussion with the troika personnel in Brussels, as is normal procedure, but not the detail of the budget - the framework only. Very good reasons have been set out for this because, as has been mentioned already, with debt going to peak next year it is important that the targets we have set out be achieved, that there be a primary surplus and that the Government takes into account an understanding of the pressure, difficulties and challenges that so many people in our country have to contend with every day. That is the deliberation for the Cabinet. The Economic Management Council does not sign off on all the details of the budget; that is a constitutional responsibility of the entire Cabinet.

I put it to Deputy Adams that his figures are incorrect in respect of emigration. There have been 15 consecutive months of a fall in the live register and unemployment is now down to 13.3% and is going to fall further.

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