asked the Taoiseach if he will elaborate on his recent statement, made in a speech to Limerick Chamber of Commerce, that the farming sector can be expected to provide the Exchequer with funds for development programmes.

It is not the practice, nor do I regard it as appropriate, to elaborate issues of this sort by way of reply to parliamentary questions.

Is the Taoiseach aware that budgetary estimates of farmer taxation are notoriously inaccurate, that in 1977, for example, the budget estimate in this regard was £35 million whereas only £10 million was achieved——

This is a separate question.

——and that again in 1978 the estimated yield was £24 million whereas the yield now is expected to be only £11 million? Would the Taoiseach agree that the miscalculations are due to the present system of budgeting?

The Deputy's supplementary renders all the more appropriate the substance of my reply. I have no intention of discussing, by way of reply to supplementary question, matters of budgetary policy.