THE GOVERNMENT has yet to decide on a date for the budget, Tánaiste Mary Coughlan told the Dáil yesterday. “It will be in and around the Christmas period . . . the end of November, the beginning of December,” she said.

Ms Coughlan said the preparations for the budget have been under way since August.

“We are back much earlier than heretofore, and, therefore, the decision on the date has not been made . . . on the basis, most particularly, on Nama and the Lisbon Treaty,” she added.

She was replying to Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, who asked if there was a problem in setting the date.

“I find it extraordinary that the Government has not yet decided a date for the budget, which would be a deadline by which departments and everybody involved would have to meet,” he added.

Ms Coughlan said returning immigrants helped to explain the high emigration figures from the Republic contained in yesterday’s Central Statistics Office report. “It is true to say that emigration has returned,” she said.

“If we look at the figures, we can see quite a considerable number of people who are part of that are those who are returning home.” She said there was “still a considerable number of people coming into this country . . . over 26,000 people”.

Ms Coughlan was replying to Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny.

She said that the latest quarterly survey was not a surprise.

“It is just a reminder of the major challenges we have in the context of sustaining employment and creating new opportunities here,” she added.

Mr Kenny challenged the Tánaiste to say what specific commitments the Government had been given that the banks would lend the extra money, under Nama, to small businesses and struggling families throughout the country.

Ms Coughlan said that Nama was the most appropriate way in which there would be a credit supply to business.

She added that banks would get cheaper funds from the European Central Bank, which would be an enticement for them to lend.

Ms Coughlan said that the party whips would decide whether the committee stage of the Nama legislation would be held in plenary session in the Dáil or by way of a committee.

A plenary session could shorten the debate because other legislation had to be dealt with, she said.

There was no proposal to guillotine the second stage debate on the legislation, she said.