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

First, the Deputy must recognise that some taxes are quite lumpy in the way they come in and the Revenue is still confident that the figures will right themselves as the year goes by. We can safely say at this stage that we will not have the overrun in tax receipts that we had over the past two years. The other side of the balance sheet is expenditure and that is running behind profile as well. We are more or less in balance at the moment but expenditure can accelerate as the year goes by. We hope it will stay in balance. We are not thinking of corrective actions yet. It is too early to do so but the first step always in correction is to make sure the expenditure does not exceed revenue flow.

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