Jack Chambers

No, absolutely not.

On average, in recent years, it has been around that number.

What we've seen this year is obviously our overall plan across about 16 of the 18 government departments are on profile.

where we've had an overspend is in education.

And with that, I've introduced an expenditure levy where all government departments essentially will burden share and take collective responsibility for the reprioritisation that we've made in education.

And that helps moderate overall current expenditure.

And I want to protect the economy into the long term, build greater fiscal discipline in government, but also have a better debate within government on how we have more efficiencies

and reform within the overall level of spend, because you're correct.

In the last five to six years, we've had an exponential increase in current expenditure.

People want to see more outcomes, better services from the overall increase.

And that's why an efficiency levy, which is used in other governments across the world, is a way to have better delivery across the overall level of expenditure rather than it just being a debate about different government departments getting more.

Well, they've all agreed to it.

So we've had... Agreeing to it and being supportive of it are two different things.

It forces greater reforms and efficiencies within government departments.

And unfortunately, when people see surpluses and people see significant expenditure increases year on year, it maybe doesn't prioritise the conversation as much about getting more for what our overall spend is.

And I'm conscious that

if in a number of years, if there was an economic contraction, we would have to get more out of the overall base of expenditure.

And that should be a standard discipline within the Irish government, within the Irish state, that we better deliver across the level of expenditure that we have in our economy.

So that's why an efficiency levy has been introduced.

And what we've done, there's been a marginal increase in health spending above profile.