asked the Minister for Finance if he will ensure that the Book of Estimates will henceforth be published in September as laid out in the White Paper "A Better Way to Plan the Nation's Finances".
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Publication of Book of Estimates.
20.
The White Paper "A Better Way to Plan the Nation's Finances", does not propose publication of the Book of Estimates during September. The Book of Estimates has been published during the autumn session of the Dáil in each of the past four years and it is the Government's intention that this will continue to be the case.
We cannot hear the Minister. Would the Minister speak a little more slowly and audibly?
And as clearly as his new Minister of State.
I take the point that it did not propose it in September. I refer the Minister to his own publication. The proposal was to publish it in mid-October of each year. I take it the Minister will accept that as fact?
That is correct.
I take it from that that the Minister is dissatisfied with the practice that has followed since the publication of his proposal "A Better Way to Plan the Nation's Finances" in which it was proposed to publish the Estimates for public expenditure in mid-October each year? I assume he is dissatisfied with what has happened since?
I do not know how the Deputy can reach that conclusion.
It is not very difficult. The Minister, when he was Minister for Finance before, indicated in his proposals that it was essential that the Estimates for the Public Services be published in mid-October of each year. They have not been published in full this year yet. In view of that, I am asking the Minister if he is dissatisfied with what has happened in the last three years and if he proposes now to reintroduce what he promised over four years ago?
The Estimates for this year have been published in an abridged form. Admittedly the detailed figures to which the Deputy has referred have yet to be published but the bulk of the information is available. It is fair to say that there is a problem with publishing as early as mid-October or September, as the Deputy suggested, and that is that it would mean that the bulk of the heavy work of the Government Departments, which is the work on the Estimates, would have to be done during July and August. This poses a major practical problem. We are all human, including the officials of various Departments, and it is difficult to conduct an Estimates campaign during August which would be the month you would have to do it in to achieve either of these two publication dates. That is a major practical difficulty which this proposal has run into over the last four years, and an understandable one.
May I take it from that that the Minister is now repudiating what he proposed as Minister for Finance some four years ago? I note that the arguments he gave in favour of the mid-October publication are not now advanced by him and I note that the argument he advances today as to the difficulties or impracticalities of doing what he proposed then were not advanced by him then. In view of all of that, are we to take this document here now as another fairytale from this Government or is there to be a clear statement from the Minister that he is repudiating what he proposed in that document and that he has no intention of following it through? At least then we would have clarity and some might say honesty.
That is a speech.
There are a great number of proposals in that document that have been implemented. The Deputy is involved, for instance, in the Committee on Public Expenditure which is one of the proposals in that document which has been implemented. He is focusing on just one proposal and making a big hoo-ha about the fact that yes, indeed, practical difficulties that exist were not foreseen by me at the time that that document was published. I do not see what the Deputy is getting all excited about. The advantages of publishing before the beginning of the financial year that were advanced in that document are advantages that still exist. One of the possible ways of getting round this problem might be to change the financial year. If the financial year coincides with the calendar year you have the problem that the period in which the most intensive work on the preparation of the Estimates has to be done tends to coincide with the holiday period of July and August. This is a matter to which I will be giving attention over the next number of months to see if there is a way around the very real and practical difficulties that exist in the way of a proposal that I believe would be desirable and would be helpful to Deputies if it could be achieved in a practical way. There is no question of this idea being repudiated, to use Deputy O'Kennedy's emotive language. It is simply a question of finding a practical way to achieve it, which unfortunately so far we have not been able to find.
In the year preceding the publication of this document, 1982, the Fianna Fáil Government of the day presented the Estimates in mid-November.
The document was published in 1981.
Well, the following year it was presented in mid-November. Since that time we have never had anything approximating the target set out by the Coalition Government. If it could be done by the Fianna Fáil Government does that not demonstrate that the practicalities the Minister mentioned are not the problem but rather the inability of this Government to finalise their accounts is the problem? That and only that. The disagreements in Government.
I do not think I can let the Deputy away with statements like that. The real difficulty I was referring to from a practical point of view does exist with regard to mid-October. A mid-November publication date which was achieved by the Deputy's party when in office, I will freely acknowledge, is something that is practicable from the point of view of the difficulty I have mentioned and it is something I would like to see achieved but I will not make a rash promise on that subject. I think it would be desirable and I am happy to commend our predecessors on having achieved it in the year in which they did.
Would the Minister endeavour to ensure that the Book of Estimates on which the current budget debate is being conducted is at least presented to this House so that we will not have to rely on statements from Ministers coming in here with no particular information for the House but at risk to themselves announcing cutbacks that the House has not been made aware of in the Book of Estimates?
Question No. 21.