Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will deal with each Deputy in turn. Deputy Durkan has acknowledged the pressures that can develop within a number of Departments, including the Department of Health, for budget overruns. The Minister, Deputy Harris, and I have worked very hard to put in place an Estimate for next year which reflects the learning we have had about challenges that have occurred during 2018. The way we have done this relates to a point that Deputy O'Brien has just put to me. We have looked at levels of expenditure for this year, particularly with regard to recruitment, which we believe will continue into 2019. We have tried to fund that in a new way. It has meant that the current expenditure settlements that other Departments have received have had to take account of that because we have to make choices. With regard to what Deputy O'Brien said, additional tax take for 2018 has contributed to dealing with the difficulty for this year but I am mindful of the point he has made about reliance on corporation tax next year. This is the reason why I have not assumed that nearly €700 million of the corporation tax collection that we received in 2018 will be available in 2019. I have taken that out of my figures. That €700 million is roughly equivalent to the additional revenue raised by, for example, changing VAT in the hospitality sector and other tax measures that I put in place to try to avoid the overreliance that the Deputy is warning against.

See this speech in context