Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)

I have not noticed any elbows out at Cabinet when it comes to budget negotiations. In fairness to Ministers, their objective is to try to ensure they can get sufficient resources to fund their Department for the year ahead. In my area of justice, it is something I am seeking to do but I also have to be conscious and responsible that we need to keep restraint on public spending. Notwithstanding that, we find ourselves in a unique position in this country whereby we have a very large surplus. We are not in the position that other countries find themselves, whereby they do not have a surplus. Many countries cannot agree spending in any specific area.

It is also important to point out that this did not happen by accident. The surplus we have arises as a result of political decisions that were made by Governments of the past. When Deputy Cairns is criticising this Government, she should just recall the fact that the reason we are in such a sound financial state is decisions made by previous Governments, and they deserve credit for them. We decided we would try to adopt an open economy that would attract in outside investment and have the effect of creating large surpluses that we could spend for the benefit of our citizens.

I agree with some of the Deputy's criticism regarding what the Comptroller and Auditor General identified in his report. I previously replied to Deputy McDonald in respect of the chapter on IPAS. Deputy Cairns identified another chapter in the report relating to wholly unnecessary expenditure by An Garda Síochána in respect of rooms for the Europa League final last year that subsequently were not used. This type of spending should not have occurred. The Garda has accepted the recommendations of the Comptroller and Auditor General in his report and recognises it should not book rooms that far in advance and, if it does so, that it does not need to book them all. It also needs to ensure it has an appropriate cancellation policy in place to ensure the State and the Garda are not left in a position whereby they have to meet such a large bill for unused accommodation.

I am very pleased that the Social Democrats will launch its prebudget submission late. I have no doubt that the Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Chambers, will give careful consideration to it. I note what the Deputy said about some of the proposals the party is putting out there. I have no doubt that, together with Deputy O'Callaghan, she has carefully crafted the expenditure to be spent on them. However, as the Taoiseach said yesterday, this comes down to a matter of choices. The choices that Deputy has identified may all be creditable and appropriate but they will have an impact on other types of expenditure. I can assure her that the Government will give consideration to the Social Democrats budget. I cannot give any assurance that we will adopt the policies put out in its budget. It is not the case, however, that simply because they are in the Social Democrats' budget, we will not give them consideration. The Ministers will, and the Deputy will be able to find out what is in the budget next week.

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