Worse than sloppy, unprofessional management is the fact that ordinary citizens are paying today because the Government and the Minister in particular put their egos before the national interest. It was the political ego of the Minister that drove him to introduce two election budgets, for 2001 and 2002 – two massive spending budgets which drove public spending out of control and the nation back into debt. It was the need to feed this political ego that led the Minister, in 2001, to tax jobs and frighten away foreign investment by abolishing the employers' PRSI ceiling. When the social insurance fund was in surplus, it was political ego that wasted €400 million on an abortive national stadium. This equates to more than 1% of income tax receipts.