asked the Minister for Finance if with a view to increasing public awareness of the dangerous and insupportable drift in public expenditure and related taxation he will publish the draft annual estimates for Government Departments as presented by them to him together with an illustration of the increase in taxation required to finance such expenditure; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Departmental Estimates.
10.
I will consider the Deputy's proposal. While publication of the draft estimates demands and the related taxation implications could have the favourable effect suggested by the Deputy, it could also give rise to certain practical problems. However, as I have recently informed the House, the Government will shortly be publishing, for discussion purposes, their proposals for reforms extending across the whole range of financial procedures, and the Deputy's suggestion, as well as any others that may be made, will be borne in mind in relation to those proposals.
I am greatly encouraged by the Minister's approach. Will he agree with me that the present system helps to keep alive the lie that there is any such thing as a free service from the Government? Will he not agree that the only way to curb demands for greater expenditure is directly and publicly to embarrass the big spenders with the tax consequences of their own extravagance? This can only be done by publication of the draft Estimates from spending Departments.
There is another way of achieving the same result and that is by publishing the Estimates as agreed by the Government well in advance of the budget when the tax measures to pay for them are introduced. This would allow for timely debate of the Government's proposals and for any modification of them in the light of that debate. If the consensus in the House was that the provisions were inadequate then additional taxation would have to be levied. Likewise if the House were of opinion that the tax burden likely to arise was too great the Government would be in a position to reduce expenditure. That is the basic underlying proposal in the document which I will be publishing very shortly. As to the specific suggestion made by Deputy Ryan there is one problem which I am sure he and former Ministers for Finance will appreciate and that is that this proposal, by encouraging spending Departments to publish their demands, would encourage them to put in the maximum demand because if they put in anything less in respect of any item they would bring down on their heads the condemnation of anyone benefitting from that item. The present position, which does not allow publication until the Government as a whole have considered the matter, puts the spending Ministers as well as the Minister for Finance in a position of collective responsibility where they must take some responsibility for pruning the demands in their Departments.
That sounds like a homily arising out of the weekend.
A very good homily.
Arising from a lengthy observation of the mistakes of my predecessors.
Mr. Allen
Is the Minister including his former predecessor, Deputy Ryan?
No, I am not. I am including my immediate predecessors. Deputy Ryan was the last responsible Minister for Finance until the present time.
Hear, hear.
He was a very responsible Minister who took a lot of pressure in order to serve the national interest.
(Interruptions.)
On a point of order, the Taoiseach must not have thought too much of Deputy Ryan or he would have appointed him to the same position as he had.
That is not a point of order.
11.
asked the Minister for Finance when he expects to publish the estimates for 1982 and involve the Dáil in consideration of the overall consequences of the measures necessary to finance them as visualised by him in his Financial Statement of July last.
As I indicated in reply to questions from Deputies Mitchell and Fitzgerald, last Thursday, 12 November, I hope to present the Estimates to the House before the end of the year. New procedures for the consideration of Estimates by the House are amongst the Government's proposals for reform which I have indicated will be presented very shortly. As I have previously explained, time will not permit of these new procedures being implemented for the 1982 Estimates but, with the support of the House, I hope that it will be possible to have them implemented in time for the 1983 Estimates.