Varadkar: Too early to decide fate of spare €1bn
The Transport Minister has said that it is too early to decide how the spare €1bn will be used in Budget 2014.
The cash means extra money in the pot for government ministers - they have been told that savings needed to be achieved from next years budget have been reduced from €3bn to €2b.
It is not yet clear if the money will be used to ease off on planned cuts and tax hikes or if it will be used to fund a stimulus programme to get people back to work.
Leo Varadkar said that while lowering the country's deficit is important, unemployment is an issue he would like to see brought under control.
"We're making huge progress in bringing the deficit under control, but the deficit shouldn't be the only target," he said.
"That was the target that the Troika was obsessed about, hopefully next year the Troika won't be in control anymore
"There are other targets that are important too and the big target that is important to me is unemployment we have got it down from about 15% to 13.7% but it is still unacceptable high."
