Since the Minister has taken one of my priority questions now I should like to pursue it.

The Deputy can pursue it in priority time.

Why did the Minister not answer that aspect of my tendentious question which asked if in view of the death of Building on Reality the Government have proposals to publish any further economic plan? The Minister took both questions together. That is a specific question which I should like him to answer.

We have no plans at this stage to publish an economic plan.

Dick will not let you.

Any plan must be based on firm decisions which have been taken. A plan simply explains the likely consequences of those decisions. The most important priority for us all is to ensure that decisions are taken to reduce the level of public spending in such a way as to reduce Government borrowing so as to help reduce interest rates in our community and thus give a sound basis for extra job creation. My priority at this time is not the preparation of a paper document called a plan but is rather to have decisions taken by the Cabinet in regard to the 1987 budget and to laying out the lines of subsequent budgets into the next decade. Those decisions are far more valuable in their long term effect than the publication of any document by anybody.

The Minister has now acknowledged that you cannot have a plan without decisions and that no decisions have been taken. Will the Minister give some indication of what prospects the people may expect from a Government who cannot take decisions much less put forward a plan? The Minister acknowledges that no decisions have been taken.

We are now in priority time. No questions may be asked by anyone other than the Deputy.

I want to have a reply to that question. The Minister indicated that the main target of Building on Reality was and still is with the Government, that is that unemployment and excessive borrowing would be reduced simultaneously. Would the Minister like to explain to the House and to the nation how he can reconcile that with the fact that those two elements are the elements which have grown at the most enormous rate, unemployment up to 240,000 and total national debt up to over £23 million, almost doubled since this Government came into office? Is that the Minister's notion of simultaneous reduction in unemployment and borrowing?

When the Minister mentions that unemployment is stabilised at a higher level than projected in the plan, would he not acknowledge that that is a very unhealthy form of stabilisation, particularly if account is taken of the fact that in stabilising, even at this higher level than projected in the plan, we have had to export over 120,000 of our youngest, finest and best? Could we have a formal funeral service for Building on Reality, perhaps at less cost than the formal ceremony in Dublin Castle, to launch this nonsense. It was launched at great expense, a great lavish production — Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer never did anything like it. I can assure the Minister that there would be thousands attending.

Hear, hear. Joan of Arc.

No big cigars and no champagne.

The Deputy asked about decisions that had been taken by the Government, important decisions in regard to the 1987 budget. First, the current budget deficit will not exceed 7.4 per cent of GNP and the Exchequer borrowing requirement — that is the total amount the Government will borrow — will not exceed 11.8 per cent; likewise, the Government have decided that there should be no overall increase in taxation.

They decided that each year and did the opposite.

In order to implement those general decisions, a number of decisions have already been taken by the Cabinet in regard to the level of spending on particular services. The bulk of the Votes in the Book of Estimates for 1987 have already been decided on by the Cabinet. However, a number of important decisions remain to be taken and these are engaging the attention of the Cabinet at the moment.

Sure.

As far as the targets referred to by the Deputy are concerned, I should like to make the following point and I think it is an important one. The references to unemployment were contained in page 26 of Building on Reality in table 1 (2) and if the Deputy looks at his copy, which I see he has before him——

I go to bed with it every night. It gives me nightmares.

——he will see that the reference and the heading of that table is "Projections in regard to Employment"— not promises, simply projections.

I did a better job.

As the Deputy is well aware, in public administrations all over the world, for instance, the US Government are publishing projections about the US economy virtually on a monthly basis, those are produced on the basis——

On a point of order——

Is it a point of order?

I believe it is.

The Ceann Comhairle will have to wait to hear it.

Please, I think the Deputy should let me reply. I did not interrupt his long rambling question.

The Minister has mentioned page 26 of Building on Reality in which he refers to projections.

This is becoming a debate across the Floor.

On a point of order, is it a projection when one gets an assertion as follows: "This will mean that between the end of this year and April 1987 employment creation will have absorbed the whole of the labour force and achieved a start to the reduction of unemployment." Is that not a statement of fact?

The Deputy is out of order.

That is not a projection. I am not going to listen to misstatements of fact.

These are elaborations of projections. As the Deputy is well aware, Governments all over the world are publishing projections about how the economy will perform on a monthly basis almost, certainly on a yearly basis. The EC, for example, publishes projections every year in its annual report about what is likely to happen to unemployment in each of the member states. If that is not achieved, nobody says to the EC that it broke its promise because the particular projection was not achieved in the particular member state.

I have three more questions to be answered.

If the Deputy were to achieve the situation he seems to want to achieve, which is that any projection made by a Government about anything is immediately converted for political debate purposes into a promise, then no Government would ever make a projection about anything. That, to my mind, would not be desirable because the Government have information available to them which is useful in assessing economic policy. Sometimes things do not turn out as expected——

They certainly do not.

——sometimes they turn out better. In the case of inflation and the balance of trade the results were better than those expected in Building on Reality. In the case of other matters such as unemployment, the results were not as good. However, I see no reason that we should not publish projections of this kind and revise them from time to time. I have already indicated in my reply to the Deputy's question that this projection has been revised, is not going to be achieved and that there is no attempt here at concealment on the part of the Government. I think it is better for all of us to debate matters of this kind on the basis of a true appreciation of the up to date situation, rather than attempting to rake over the coals for purely sterile party purposes.

Spoof. I did not mean to upset the Minister so much. Obviously, he is in a very serious position.

He is facing Beecher's Brook for the second time.