andMr. Bruton asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries why there has been a cut of £575,000 in the provision for 1972-73 for farm buildings and water supplies.

The Estimates provision for the farm buildings and water supplies schemes in 1972-73 is £3,500,000 as compared with the Estimates provision of £2,825,000 for 1971-72. The comparison in the question is with the actual expenditure in 1971-72 the excess over the Estimate in that year being covered by Supplementary Estimate. The actual expenditure of course varies from year to year for a number of reasons.

Does the Minister expect that the actual expenditure this year will be less than the actual expenditure last year and, if not, why has he provided less this year than was spent last year?

Again this is the same type of thing that we had on the last question. The provision, as of now, as compared with this time 12 months, is greater.

Question No. 18.

May I ask the Minister if it is the policy of the Department to provide less in the Estimates than they expect to spend and, therefore, to always have Supplementary Estimates?

That is a separate question.

(Cavan): Would the Minister agree that due to the increased costs, generally speaking, it would take more money to do the same amount of work and that in those circumstances it would be reasonable to provide more money if there is a worthwhile amount of work to be done?

I think the Deputy is ignoring the fact that the grants were improved last February and that an unusually large amount of work was done last year because of the very favourable weather conditions.

Question No. 18.

Is the Department expecting bad weather this year?

Question No. 18. Would Deputy Bruton allow the Chair to call Question No. 18?

Has the Minister any long-range weather forecast?

The Deputy is endeavouring to show, by comparing figures that are not similar, that there is some intention on the part of the Department of Agriculture to reduce expenditure and it simply cannot be done because it is not so.