That rings a bell.

-----she could provide a one-off refund of water charges to those who have already paid their bills at a cost of €140 million. That would appease all of the backbenchers sitting behind her but I doubt she will do that. I presume she will continue to make fools of the public and the backbenchers behind her. A decent investment in public transport is also a possibility that would see fares reduced for commuters. That would cost much less than €140 million.

That is another option for the Tánaiste, especially as workers today are facing fare increases across a range of different services. She might inform the Minister, Deputy Ross, about that because he probably is not aware of it.

He is well aware of it.

The list goes on. She could guarantee the funding needed for mental health services, reduce the student contribution or increase funding for schools or the reliance on voluntary contributions from parents. Any of these measures would improve the standard of living of working people.

Will the Tánaiste give a commitment, given the Exchequer figures, that the proceeds of these better tax receipts will be used to help working people? Will she outline to the House her thinking as to how that will happen?

I thank the Deputy for his acknowledgement of the improvements in the economy, which are being sustained at this point. The Deputy's point is that if the economy continues to improve we will have more choice regarding the very difficult decisions that still have to be taken. We made clear in the budget that we wanted to sustain the economy to invest in public services. It is very important that we continue to invest in public services, make sure that taxpayers, who keep the services going, also benefit from the improved economy and, equally, ensure those in public sector will be in a position to benefit. I want to pay tribute to both Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Noonan, for their management of the budgetary decisions and the improvements in the economy. Primarily, it takes the people of this country to ensure we have those improvements.

The Deputy spoke about the range of choices available. I would make the point that in the overall scheme of things there are constraints to which we have to adhere if we are to ensure we continue to meet the various demands both at European and national level.

I want to put on the record the news we received from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, last week. The numbers at work are now at their highest level since 2008, at 2 million. There has been a 2.9% increase in the number of people employed in Ireland in the past year.

The figures also show that the industry sector is the fastest growing sector in the economy while the accommodation and food service sector and construction sectors remain strong, with employment growing in 12 out of the 14 economic sectors. Of course, Government will consider the range of options.

On the Deputy's point about water, of course it is absolutely critical that those who have paid their water charges, those who have been compliant, should not in any way be disadvantaged going forward. We now have the committee which will consider the various options in this regard.

Unfortunately, the Tánaiste did not answer my question. It is a clear and simple question.

Deputy Kelly had about 20 questions.

What was the question?

I will repeat it for the Tánaiste, who is obviously losing her hearing. There are better tax receipts. The Government is facing into options on how it spends those tax receipts. There are people who are in work today who are looking at the cost of living in this country and they need to be given a break. The Government has a series of options on how it does that across a range of different services, for those in the public sector, for workers across a range of different jobs, and for those who depend on health and education services. Clearly, the Government has options and it must be discussing those. Will the Tánaiste indicate how the Government will help those people, using the increased tax receipts that have been announced by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, and those receipts that undoubtedly will come in December? Surely the Tánaiste has the capacity to give an example of how the Government will help these people. I will be shocked if the Tánaiste is incapable of doing so. Is that question clear enough?

It is a fairly general question, and the Deputy knows well how these decisions work in the Cabinet. The decision we took earlier this year when there was extra revenue was clear. A substantial sum of money was put into the health services and a number of other areas, including justice and education. The Deputy is well aware of how these processes work.

It is important to recognise, and to repeat, that it is thanks to the decisions that were taken by the previous Government and by this Government that we are seeing the economy continuing to grow. If the economy did not grow, we would not have the money to make that kind of investment in health and other services. The key issue is to continue to ensure there is prudent management and careful policies are followed, such as those that we have followed since 2011, which will ensure we continue to reduce and eliminate the current budget deficit, balance the budget in 2018 and have budgetary surpluses after that. That gives us and the country a range of choices. I have made clear that it is a combined approach that ensures we can reduce taxes for those who fund all of this, that we invest in public services and that we continue to manage the economy in order that we can continue with the changes in public sector pay and with the process in which we are engaged with the unions which the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, outlined this week. That is the approach.

The Cabinet will continue to discuss the areas that need extra budget, as we have done during the past year.

I thank the Tánaiste.

The overall point is to welcome the continued growth in the economy which gives those choices. If we did not have that growth, we would not have the choices. There were no choices for many years in this country-----

The time is up.

-----when we began to deal with this crisis in 2011, as the Deputy well knows.

The Independents are in government now. We turned it around.