Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My question follows on from Deputy Michael McGrath's and amplifies the need for a better process for having more information available in respect of the budget. The Minister referred to staying within the fiscal space of 1.5%, which applies to the expenditure benchmark in budget 2016. However, he has strongly indicated that there is scope to introduce supplementary Estimates to deal with the buoyancy in taxation and the additional receipts that have come in. Because expenditure in the next three months does not count as part of the expenditure benchmark rule, we could spend a couple of hundred million euro on education, health and social welfare - for example, restoring the Christmas bonus or putting child benefit back in place - and it would not count in relation to the fiscal space.

Can the Minister confirm this and does he have any intention of following that line, which would be a way of avoiding the constraints the expenditure benchmark has placed on the Government?

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