asked the Minister for Finance, the estimated Government expenditure in 1979 as a percentage of estimated GNP.

Exchequer-financed Government expenditure, current and capital expressed as a percentage of GNP, is estimated at 4.7 per cent in 1979.

Could the Minister say whether the trend is upwards or downwards in that figure in the last year?

It was 46 per cent in 1978.

How does the Minister square this fact, that public expenditure will be going up, as a percentage of GNP with the Government's declared intention to make the private sector the engine of growth in the economy.

I do not quite follow the reasoning of the Deputy's question. The level of Government expenditure is not an indication that the higher Government expenditure is, the lower private sector expenditure. The two are very much intertwined. A great deal of Government expenditure triggers off private sector expenditure in the form of grants and loans and so on.