Seanad debates
Wednesday, 26 November 2003
Book of Estimates 2004: Statements.
In normal circumstances, a year on year increase of 7% in the Estimates would be about right, given that a certain percentage is for benchmarking, which is a once-off increase. It is perhaps on the low side and I would go a couple of points higher. I have serious difficulties, however, with some of the details, particularly on the capital side. We debated this some weeks ago and I made the point that we need to maintain capital spending even when the economy is not growing rapidly. Senator Minihan agreed with that during his contribution but that was not what we saw in the Estimates last week. The increase in the overall capital budget is tiny if the non-Exchequer element is excluded, only a couple of tens of millions of euro, and is a reduction in real terms.
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