Now that we can discuss this matter in a more orderly fashion. we are at this point entitled to more explanation than we have had about the reason for this recess. The suggestion that it was to enable Ministers to work in their Departments was greeted with hilarity on this side of the House, because no Governments have acquired such a reputation for Ministers not being in their offices but out nursing their constituencies as this Government have during their period in office. This is a matter of public notoriety and it is of deep concern in the public service that the work of government is not being carried out by the present Government because of the neglect by Ministers of their Departments. For the Taoiseach to suggest that that was the reason does not carry much credibility, not that there is much leeway to be made up by their being in their Departments. However they are not likely to spend this time in their Departments, having regard to past performances.
During this Dáil the volume of substantial legislation introduced has been negligible. There is no comparison between the legislative output and the performance of the last Dáil in serious legislation of a reforming character and the lightweight stuff we have had from the Government both in their previous incarnation and more particularly in the past year. The number of outstanding problems to be dealt with, the areas of reform that need to be tackled, the areas of economic crisis that need to be tackled, the areas of economic difficulty that need to be debated give us every reason for spending more time at ourwork rather than less. There can be no excuse for departing from the normal procedure of having the brief fornight Easter Recess and then getting back to work.
We have not yet started to discuss the Estimates. All the Estimates contain within them flaws of one kind or another, inconsistencies, improbabilities and deficiencies which have raised doubts which we have sought to raise in this House by putting to each Minister questions about figures which are clearly improbable and indefensible. Those questions have been ruled out by a consistent policy on the basis that these matters can be discussed on the Estimates. Yet that discussion on the Estimates which we were offered as the occasion for exploring these inconsistencies which cast doubts on the probity of the Government's approach to the Estimates of the current year is now to be denied to us for an additional period, with the possible intention of denying it altogether should the Taoiseach decide that he cannot continue any longer the facade of Government that he had been putting up and should he decide to go to the country before the barefaced character of what his Government have been engaged in for the past year and a quarter is further exposed. In these circumstances we cannot agree that the House should adjourn for this prolonged period. There is much to be discussed which we should discuss.
One of the major functions of Parliament is the examination of Estimates. Our present structure for doing this is deficient and inadequate and we propose a radical reform in this system, which in Government we shall implement to involve the examination of Estimat in advance rather than after the money has been spent. Pending that, we at least have a right under the present system to examine the Estimates in detail and to explore inconsistencies. In all the Estimates there are remarkable divergences from the pattern of expenditure last year which are not consistent with each other and in a number of instances they are not explicable in any rational terms. There are cutbacks in expenditure, for example, in the Revenue Commissioners which are quite inconsistent with expenditure on their part in terms of communication and which are inconsistent with the Revenue Commissioners collecting the kind of revenue that the Government intended to collect in the present year.
When one goes through them Vote by Vote one finds that the butchery done to the Estimates does not even show a sign of any common plan or intelligence. If the Government wanted to fool the people into thinking that the current deficit this year would be only £515 million, they could have at least set about the task more intelligently by going through the Estimates and pruning and cutting in a rational way which could have been explicable and defensible. But the barefaced manner in which this action was carried out, without any attempt to harmonise the actions of different Departments and producing results which are totally incredible, shows a contempt for this House and for democracy which does not have a precedent in this from in any previous administration. These Estimates need to be explored. We sought to explore them by way of question and answer and in every instance a direction clearly went out to dodge these questions because they were too awkward to be faced. Instead, what we got from the Government was a series of non-answers referring us to the debates on the Estimates which were to come and which are now to be postponed perhaps indefinitely, so that the lack of probity in these Estimates cannot be explored and shown up.
There are also many questions which we have been seeking to have answered but have been dodged day by day. Deputy Boland has given examples of this and the handling of these questions, the manner in which they have been ruled out of order, the twists and turns involved in this whole process and the haste with which the Dáil is being would up before the questions can be pressed to conclusion——
