Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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Question 55: To ask the Minister for Finance if he has been successful in securing an amendment to the EU-IMF memorandum of understanding not to decrease social welfare rates as is Government policy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34444/11]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The Government has successfully renegotiated a number of elements of our EU-IMF Programme and will continue to do so. As the Deputy will be aware, the latest review mission by the External Partners took place from the 11th - 20th of October. There are a numbers of programme documents that underpin the Programme of Financial Support. These documents include:

·the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP)

·the Memorandum of Understanding on Specific Economic Policy Conditionality, (MoU)

·the Letters of Intent to the IMF and the EU Authorities; and

·the Technical Memorandum of Understanding (TMU) attached to the Letter of Intent (LoI) to the IMF.

Following each review mission a revised version of these documents is published. These revised documents are being finalised and when that process is completed they will be formally submitted to the External Partners. At this stage it is expected that this process will be completed by the end of the month, and the documents will be published in due course.

As Deputies are aware it would not be appropriate for me to comment in advance of the Budget on possible Budget decisions.