Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that for the next three weeks I will be asked questions about what is in the budget. I hope everyone in this House will appreciate that the answer will be that we will find out on budget day because the budget has yet to be agreed. It needs to be discussed among Ministers, with Fianna Fáil, as the confidence and supply partners to the Government, and at Cabinet. The only answer I can give people on what will be in the budget in three weeks' time is that they will find out on budget day because the budget will only be signed and sealed that morning.

The public finances are in a strong position. Two years ago, when I became Taoiseach, our public finances were in deficit and they are now in surplus. We are one of the few countries in the world to record a budget surplus. They do not have one in the UK, in America, or in France but we are in surplus. We have also reduced the national debt considerably as a percentage of GDP in that period.

We do not have a document equivalent to the Operation Yellowhammer document but have produced all that information already. It is in the Brexit contingency plan document we published in July, the document in December before that, in the summer economic statement, and in detailed analyses published by Government and done by Copenhagen Economics, the ESRI, and the Central Bank. All those figures are available, and have been for some time. We never had an Operation Yellowhammer-type document which we hid from people. We published the information all along the way.

The budget is based on an assumption that no deal is a real possibility on 31 October. That does not mean that we necessarily believe that is going to happen. We will work to secure a deal until the very last moment but will not do so at any cost. We believe the prudent thing to do is to prepare the budget with a pessimistic scenario, which is one for no deal. The budget will prepare us for no deal.

On budget day we will publish details of the package that will be available to business and to support those businesses and jobs that are vulnerable as a consequence of Brexit. It will be a substantial package. We do not yet know how much will come from the European Union or from our own funds. Some will come from the European Union but I expect most will come from own funds. Again, that is not as yet determined. The Deputy will know as soon as we know for sure.

It is worth pointing out that we put many things in place already. There is a €300 million low-cost loan to businesses to allow them to prepare for Brexit. A future loan scheme is also being made available to businesses to allow them to adapt as is a €200 million approved restructure and rescue fund with approved state aid clearance from the European Commission to allow us to support those businesses which need it.

The Deputy's question is correct in that there has not been an enormous take up by business of these schemes as yet because they have not needed to take them up but they may need to and that is why it is important that they are there.

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