John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

I realise that, but I am referring to what the Minister spoke about. With due respect, we are commenting here on the Budget Statement. It is difficult to fully grasp everything in the accompanying document distributed in the other House, although I have seen most of it.

This budget will probably be most noteworthy for what it does not contain. Last year's budget was referred to by many as the "child care budget". The one three years ago was called the "decentralisation budget". This year's budget does not contain many surprises. I am not particularly perturbed at the fact that there is nothing surprising but it comes about after much media speculation over the last couple of weeks. We can only speculate as to whether this was prodded by Government sources but much of the media reporting appears to have been pretty accurate as regards what the budget would contain.

There were a number of things the Minister did not talk about. He mentioned the word "education" at the end of his comments in the other House, but did not go into detail, despite continuous arguments in both Houses of the Oireachtas as regards the need for increased expenditure on education. The Minister of State has pointed out that we will see an increase in the number of teachers over the next 12 months, which I welcome. However, I was disappointed the Minister did not go into detail on this in his Budget Statement.

The Minister never mentioned transport. It is ironic that it is now 5.30 p.m. on a Wednesday when the vast majority of workers in this city and throughout the country are stuck in traffic at some point or other. They might be on the M50, beside the toll bridge, about which it was speculated there might be an announcement today in the budget, but there was not, or they might be stuck in traffic in regional towns throughout the country.

There was no mention either of increased funding for justice and crime, despite significant increased activity in these areas over the last couple of years.