Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Question 287: To ask the Minister for Finance if a Book of Estimates will be published in advance of budget day 2010; if not, when this practice ceased; the reason for not publishing same as in previous years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33590/09]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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Budget 2008 marked the introduction of a unified budget whereby all of the key announcements on both the spending and the revenue side of the budget are announced together on budget day.

The detailed expenditure allocations that had previously appeared in the Abridged Estimates Volume (AEV) were presented as Budget Estimates as part of the budget documentation. In advance of the budget, an indication of the pre-budget expenditure position was included as part of the Pre-Budget Outlook in October 2007. As the Government decided to introduce an early budget in October 2008 no Pre-Budget Outlook was released, although Budget Estimates were published as normal.

The Government will decide in the near future on the make-up of the budgetary and Estimates-related documentation in the run-up to the 2010 budget.