I propose to share my time with my colleague, Deputy Michael Noonan, the real Deputy Michael Noonan.
Private Members' Business. - Adjustment to Departmental Estimates: Motion.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I move:
That Dáil Éireann directs the Committee on Procedure and Privileges to present immediately amendments to Standing Orders governing Estimates debates to provide that:
(a) amendments can be proposed to subheads in individual Estimates to reduce the amount provided;
(b) amendments can be proposed to the subheads in individual Estimates to increase the amount provided if the amendments contain within them a proposal to reduce another subhead or subheads in the Estimate, or in the same group of Estimates, by the same amount thereby ensuring that the overall provisions of the Estimate for the year in question and subsequent years are not increased overall;
(c) amendments to increase provisions for particular subheads, as set out at subparagraph (b) above shall not have effect if, within two weeks of their being passed by the Dáil the Minister for Finance certifies, for reasons stated, to a Committee of Public Expenditure that the proposal designed to achieve savings to compensate for the proposed increase will not in fact achieve the savings claimed;
(d) where the Minister for Finance makes a certification within the term of subparagraph (c) above he shall, if requested, give oral evidence in public before a Committee of Public Expenditure to explain the reasons for his certification.
This proposal is the next step in Fine Gael's reform of Irish politics — the new politics—and it is at the very heart of the policy which I set out to the Tallaght Chamber of Commerce in September 1987. The 166 Members of this House are elected to legislate for and to serve the interests of the Irish people. I want to improve the ability of this House to do just that. Our top priority must be to expand employment, to make more jobs. If we can succeed in increasing the number of viable self-sustaining jobs, we will be striking at the very root of the ills that plague our society, poverty, alienation and division. I said at Tallaght on that occasion in September 1987, and I quote:
What I am saying is, quite simply, that when we strip away all the rhetoric and get down to what really matters in the day-to-day lives of ordinary people, the resolution of our public finance problem is the essential key to everything that we want to do in the economic and social fields, to everything that we want to do to provide for our people the conditions in which they can live their lives in the way that we believe is right.
This evening I invite the Government to accept this motion as another weapon to be used in our fight against unemployment, against poverty, against emigration and against deprivation. In doing that, I invite the Government to accept the reality of the fact that it is a minority in this House. I invite the Government to accept the legitimacy of debate in this House. I invite the Government to accept also that the history of the last two years shows beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Fine Gael Party know what it is to give proper priority to the needs of the people and to put the country first. I invite the Government to wake up to the fact that my 50 Deputies accept the need to make difficult but enlightened choices with the long term interests of the Irish people at heart.
Over that period, my party have played a central role in ensuring that overall budget policy is kept on the right lines. We have succeeded in that. For those two years, we have pushed the Government along the right path. It is a Government that was not elected on this sort of platform and many of its Deputies have not got the stomach for it. Fine Gael on the other hand, have proven, both in Government and in Opposition, that they have the courage and the will to take the hard decisions that are necessary to put the nation's finances in order. The record of this House shows that Fine Gael have never once in the last two years proposed a departure from the overall budgetary targets which must be met. We have moved this House decisively away from the unreal politics of the past which were for so long so damaging to this country and our people.
Our proposal tonight is very simple. It is that without changing the overall amount of money being spent by a given Government Department, the Dáil should have the ability to move resources from one area of that Department's spending to another. We have put in a provision which allows the Minister for Finance to subject any such proposals by the Dáil to close and careful scrutiny and to determine whether or not it will have the effect that is sought. Some will see that as an infringement of the Government's executive authority. I believe, Sir, that that is an excessively rigid and bureaucratic view. I am bound to say, a Cheann Comhairle, that in spite of their reputation to the contrary, the evidence of the last two years shows very clearly that this Government allow themselves far too easily to be seduced by these excessively rigid and bureaucratic views. Such a move of the kind we are proposing would, in my view, be no more than a recognition by the Government that elected legislators have a valid role in making adjustments at the margin in the pattern of public expenditure. Just as important, our proposal would put a clear onus on opposition parties to come forward with coherent proposals and to have regard to priorities in the areas of expenditure. As things stand at present, Deputies, whether on this or the other side of the House, who are not members of the Cabinet must either accept or reject the overall levels of expenditure and revenue and the budgetary targets proposed by the Government. That is fair enough. We need to decide on the size of the playing pitch, but having done that, we are then faced with the question of whether we accept or reject each Estimate in total. That borders on the absurd.
In the Social Welfare Estimate for 1989, for example, there are 19 mainheadings. The largest one accounts for about 30 per cent of the total, the next two account for 19 per cent and 18 per cent respectively of the total and the remaining 17 account for one-third of the Estimate. If we think about those figures for a moment it is easy to see that a relatively small change in the largest item in the total could bring about a fairly substantial change if moved around into any one of the other 17 and especially into one of the smaller ones.
I have a fair amount of experience of the business of putting together Government expenditure plans and it is clear to me that there is never one single simple obvious pattern of expenditure that has to be decided upon; yet that is what we ask the House to do in the procedure we now use for the Estimates. Every one of us in this House has had the experience of seeing Bills being improved as they go through Committee and Report Stage, even Finance Bills are improved in that way. My question quite simply is, should we not have the confidence to take the same view of Estimates? Every Minister should know that the 15 members of the Government and the Civil Service do not have a monopoly of wisdom. Our proposal tonight is to give each Member of this House a means of participating in framing expenditure plans without disrupting the Government's overall financial targets.
This House can work. During the last two years my colleagues and I in Fine Gael have succeeded in making debate in this House a real debate. That is confirmed, for example, by the passage of the Judicial Separation and Family Law Reform Act. It was confirmed again by the passage of an Adoption Act which this Government did not have the wit to accept when it was first put forward as a Fine Gael Private Members' Bill. What happened? They finally saw the light and came forward with their own Bill almost identical to the one they originally rejected as a Private Members' Bill. It has been proved again and again as Bill after Bill went through this House with Fine Gael Committee Stage amendments, and was perhaps proved more spectacularly by the passage through this House of legislation on extradition which would not have been contempleted, even in their wildest imaginings, by Fianna Fáil Deputies as recently as 1986. There have been other occassions, some of them less remarked on in the media, when the Dáil has influenced the Government even though the Government affected to ignore the wishes of the House. I need only mention the National Social Services Board, the Office of the Ombudsman, the pupil/teacher ratios in our primary schools and this House prevented the Government from stepping back from cross Border security co-operation at the beginning of last year.
Let us pause for a moment to look at what some of these things indicated. On some of those occassions the Government said that although the Dáil had taken a different view from them they did not have to do anything about it. In each of those cases — the National Social Services Board, the Office of the Ombudsman and the pupil/teacher ratios — they found themselves at the end of the day, by the weight of political opinion, compelled to do something about it. A Government which was reluctant or blind or just too arrogant to see what was happening in the House was finally brought, by the pressure of political opinion, to do much of what this House actually recommended it to do. We have not succeeded in those areas without hard and imaginative political work in the House. We have not succeeded as far as we would have wished, but we have certainly avoided the kinds of excesses which would be committed by an unimaginative Government blinded by the light of recent revelations and unable to see past the end of their noses. We have shown that this House can work if there is enough imagination and openness of mind on the part of the Government. God knows, the people need this House to work properly.
There is a great deal more to be done. There is an urgent need for a major tax reform even if total tax revenue is to remain at its present level for some time to come. There is a crying need for reform in social welfare so that it, together with the tax system, no longer constitutes an obstacle to employment rather than a necessary and effective cushion for those who have not yet found employment or those who are between jobs in an expanding economy. Major structural changes are needed in our economy if we are to explore fully the opportunities that will be opened to us by the full unification of the European Community market and if we are to deal successfully with the new challenges that that will present to our farmers, to food industries, to manufacturing industries and to the services sector.
I invite the Government to accept this motion. In accepting it the Government would for once participate constructively in a step which would improve the operation of this House and bring politics that much nearer to being a real service to the people. My expectations of this Government are low. They are more likely to indulge in the kind of arrogant play acting that has been their hallmark for the last two years. They avoid debate in this House and outside it. They would rather be free to carry on with the kind of abuse we have seen in relation to the national lottery funds. They would prefer not to examine issues. They are much more inclined to the dull uncaring conduct that mis-spends money on administering a health service that serves fewer and fewer people with less and less effect. They prefer not to analyse legislation. They would rather go for the kind of stroke involved in the attempt, fortunately futile, to rejig the constituencies. They will not examine people's real needs. They much prefer the kind of cosmetic deception we have seen on the Army pay issue. They do not want to take real action. They prefer to go for the kind of optics involved in the petrol price fiasco that is now about to blow up in the face of the Minister for Energy.
Wait for it.
The Government could rise above all that and take the step we have set out here and confirm that they have some concept of the legitimacy of political debate. The Government could indicate after that that they really want to see politics serving people and they could indicate finally that the message is beginning to get through, that the Government are beginning to realise at last that optics are just for the optics, that they do not make any real difference. In fact, the Government might begin to realise at last that the kinds of policies they opposed tooth and nail for four years, that they have now been pushed into pursuing for two years, are right, are required and are not enough in themselves. They need the rest added.
They need a Minister for Finance, like the Minister before us, who has had — and God knows how much longer he will have — something almost unique in the history of the country, a Dáil where the majority of the Deputies understand support and are prepared to go along with the real fundamental changes required in order to serve our people, to get the burden of debt off their backs, a Dáil that is prepared to go much farther than that, that has shown ability on this side of the House, among my 50 Deputies, to make up its mind, to set priorities and to be sensitive to the needs of the country. I am very much afraid that this Government will lose that opportunity.
I would be quite prepared and more than happy to be surprised if the Government did the creative thing and decided that this was one step that they should take, that would be in the interests of all our people, but my expectations of this Government are rather low. I do not expect them to see the need for this kind of step. The rest of the House will, I hope. This House is here to serve the people. We will not be deflected from that, and we will continue to bring forward these proposals. I predict that one of these days, as they have done on other occasions, this Government will finally wake up and find out what real politics are about.
Deputy Noonan, Limerick East, is sharing the time of Deputy Alan Dukes.
(Limerick East): The procedure for passing Estimates here is unusual in Europe, if not unique, apart from the United Kingdom. The Government decide the appropriate amount to be spent overall and the appropriate amount to be spent in each Department, and the Dáil is presented with a simple choice of take it or leave it. If the Dáil reject the Estimate the Government are constitutionally bound, because it is a Finance motion to seek the dissolution of the Dáil and have an election. That does not allow the kind of flexibility that modern parliaments need and which parliamentarians all over Europe have found to be desirable.
The worst two Governments that ever ruled here were those led by Deputy Lynch which came to office in 1977, by the present Taoiseach, Deputy Haughey when he took office in 1979. They had one thing in common. They both had vast majorities, over 90 seats in a smaller parliament. Since 1981 no one party has had a majority in this House. The Coalition Government was a majority Government, but it consisted of two parties. Deputy Haughey has tried four times to get a majority and has failed four times. In these circumstances, stability in parliament should rely more on the good sense of parliamentarians rather than on the goodwill of the main Opposition party. The good sense of parliamentarians needs a vehicle to provide the financial stability which this country needs and which the three parties which share a certain perspective of our difficulties at the moment and over the last few years would require.
Against that background, this most relevant motion, especially taken in the context of the various conversations in this House and in the public media over the last few days, is a motion which would allow stability in a minority Government. It would remove the constant threat of being defeated on financial motions, with the absolutely inevitable constitutional consequence of a general election. It would allow parliamentarians a real role in deciding how public money should be spent in circumstances where it is scarce and will continue to be scarce.
The motion does not advocate a procedure under which this Dáil could increase the totality of public expenditure; it would allow this Dáil to reduce the total amount of public expenditure and that is a good provision. It would also allow this Dáil to switch money within certain subheads of a departmental Vote.
Real debate in this House, because of the very strict procedure governing Estimates and financial affairs in the normal day-to-day running of the House, has moved from the main business of the House into Private Members' Time from 7 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. and the real issues that concern the people have been debated over the past ten years, effectively, in what is a side show. We must ask why the affairs of last week were debated in Private Members' Time, why the crucial Education debate took place in that time, why the question of the Ombudsman's Office took place in Private Members' Time and so on. The reason is that you move to Private Members' Time because the consequences of a Government defeat in Private Members' Time are not the same as those of a defeat on the floor of the House during normal business time on a financial motion.
We are seeking to plan for future parliaments which I believe will be Government by a minority. We are trying to establish a procedural stability where not only have the Government the right to conduct their business as they should and plan the finances of the country, which still remains the crucial issue, but where the Parliament can share in that task and like-minded parliamentarians, no matter what side of the House they find themselves on, are given the flexibility which arises from their maturity to deal with the financial affairs of the nation in a satisfactory fashion.
At the end of the 20th century modern well-educated parliamentarians cannot be treated like school children, where a Minister asks them to put up their hands and they put them up and say tá or níl and home they go. We need a say. Implicit in what we are talking about is a change, not a major one, but a change in the centre of power. This involves a reduction, to some extent, of the power of the Executive and an increase in the power of the Parliament. What we are proposing is common practice right across Europe. There are European countries where budgets are actually negotiated. We have the division of powers in the United States of America where the President presents a budget to Congress and it is effectively negotiated. We are not going down that dramatic road, but we are saying that people in this House should have the right to decide where the real needs of our people lie and should be in a position to move money accordingly.
Our motion also says that the Minister for Finance needs safeguards. There is no point in our coming into a future Dáil, or the Minister's party in Opposition coming into a future Dáil, and moving money about if the figures do not add up. We say that a certification process is necessary to protect the revenue and the Minister and to make sure that what is being proposed is correctly put together. We all know also that it is possible to take decisions here that involve no increase in expenditure in a current year but can involve huge increases in subsequent years. We have also allowed for this. The Minister, by a process of certification, can ensure that the revenue is protected and that Parliament, in expressing its will, does no more than express its will and changes money from one subhead to another.
It is appropriate in our circumstances that the Government, having all the information from the various institutions of State, the various Departments and the Central Bank, should still be in a position to decide the overall level of expenditure. I cannot for the life of me see why, if this Dáil decides that another £5.5 million should be spent on remedial education, it cannot decide to move that amount from another Education subhead and put it into remedial education. I cannot see why, in the course of a Health Estimate, this House could not decide, if it was the wish and will of the majority here, the subject of those about whom we talked in Private Members' Time, last week, the haemophiliacs afflicted by the AIDS virus, would be an appropriate issue on an Estimates debate, where the possibility of an appropriate amount of money being switched from one subhead to another without any increase in overall Government expenditure could be decided in this House. Then we might have a mature Parliament, a Parliament that would be responsive to the needs of our people. Then we might have a Parliament where parliamentarians would have a role other than the prospect of being in an Administration.
One of the reasons that Parliament is becoming irrelevant is that the actions of parliamentarians are increasingly more futile. If the Executive proposes and disposes and all a Parliament has is the right of veto, that is not healthy for democracy.
All of what I have said would not be so pressing if we thought we were in for a period of majority Government. I am proposing a way out, a stabilising of Government in a minority situation. I would go further and say that if we were to couple this proposal with fixed term parliaments then we might get the continuity of policies which would give us the appropriate kind of growth rates and levels of employment and the wherewithal to plan a future for all the people of this country. While we have a situation where politics has the inflexibility which it has now and where elections become an attempt on crucial occasions by one group to out-bid the other, then not only will we continue to have the present problems but we will actually exacerbate them.
I have heard conversations in this House today to the effect that if the Taoiseach calls an election there will be a majority. If you are a commentator, or are not involved in politics, when the word "election" is mentioned you see this national struggle where the forces are pitted against each other. All of us in this House know that an election is different from that. Even though that is some of the reality, it is also 41 different battles in the constituencies.
That is for sure.
(Limerick East): There are a number of issues which will bring about the situation — if the Minister likes to test the waters — which I am saying will occur and we will be left again in a position where either we at this side of the House and those who share our views or the Minister's party at his side of the House will be attempting to run this country as a minority Administration. The spirit of that amendment would be very useful when we are planning for that future which might be insecure.
Even though we have agreed that many of the options, the visions, the dreams, the plans we have for the future are preempted by the burden of the debt and by the fact that such a large amount of our resources has to be dedicated to the servicing of that debt, almost a quarter of a million of our people are still unemployed and 100,000 people emigrated in the last three years. The labour force is expanding by 25,000 a year. Anything the Minister and his colleagues have put before us, including the most recent plan, is not sufficient even to absorb the increase in the labour force, much less put any dent in the 240,000 people on the live register. The former Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, said if unemployment went over 100,000 the Government in office did not deserve to be re-elected. What will we say about a Government who are presiding over a quarter of a million unemployed when every boat and plane are taking the finest of our young people out of the country?
Even those statistics hide another tragedy. Any of us who represent urban constituencies know that when you examine unemployment on the ground in the private housing areas the percentage might be small, but in the large corporation areas you have 75 per cent male unemployment. A number of people around here who are thinking of knocking on doors in the near future will find men in their twenties and thirties, unshaven, coming down to open the door at 1 o'clock and 2 o'clock in the day with a hopeless look in their eyes, trapped in poverty and hopelessness. I am not painting a picture to depress the Minister or ourselves, I am simply saying if the whistle blows and battle is engaged, when it comes down to the constituencies there is enough power hanging around to make life very uneasy for any Government who think they are on a run. They are not on a run.
Time will tell.
(Limerick East): We will meet the run very quickly.
As quickly as we can.
(Limerick East): We have proposed a series of initiatives which the Minister has not taken up and which will help with the unemployment problem. We are not saying it can be solved overnight but it can be improved. We have talked about cost factors in the economy and about tax reform. We have put various proposals to the Minister. In the course of the debate on the national plan we said it should be programme-based rather than project-based. We said it should be integrated if it is to be anything and a series of good projects, no matter how attractive, will not give us the kind of impetus to growth we need if our people are to go back to work. That has all been ignored.
Emigration will be an issue on the doorsteps when we go around which will make it very difficult for any party or combination of parties here to be a majority Government. At times we look at the emigrants through rose-coloured glasses when we think of all those bright young people coming out with college degrees and leaving certificates. It should be admitted that a large number of our highly qualified young people can be very strong on information and very low in skills, and in modern industrial economies they are not necessarily doing very well. This is illustrated particularly by the plight of emigrants in London. Many of our colleagues on both sides of the House have seen it. It is a shocking scandal that several hundred young Irish people should be living in cardboard boxes in various parts of London while the Government seem to advocate emigration as a national policy. Anyone looking for a large majority will find that meeting them on many doorsteps. Whereas the traditional emigration of the forties and fifties seemed to affect the poor and the small farmers more than anybody else, emigration is now a middle class issue as well as we will hear it on the doorsteps from parents who might be most impressed by the economic programme, moderate as it is, which has been achieved by our support for the Government following our policies.
Over a million people are in poverty now and I do not think they are going to be enthusiastic about any of us. We have almost accepted on all sides of the House that the poor must wait. I do not think the poor must wait. The connection between poverty and unemployment should be stated. At least we could attack the poverty traps. Poverty traps will be an issue if this is to be tested. I could go on.
I can talk about the health service, appallingly administered and badly run from the Minister down. There is probably plenty of money there to run an efficient health service. The sums of money are huge and on top of that we have more funding from the VHI apart from affairs in the Estimates at all, yet not a Deputy in this House does not know of a series of incidents of tragedy arising in the health service for one reason or another. Think of the fear, especially among the old, that having been admitted to hospital for serious surgery, they will be turfed out within 48 hours and have to go home with no care. That is going to be a major issue. Any Taoiseach who is feeling bullish at the moment should meet some of the people who visit my clinics.
It is not the Taoiseach who is bullish.
He is sheepish.
(Limerick East): Deputy Birmingham can talk about education better than I can because he has been shadowing it now for some time. Fianna Fáil are the party who promised smaller classes and delivered larger ones. It was the Minister's colleague, the Minister for Education, who cried visible tears on this side of the House when Carysfort College was shut. Now she has the axe in her hand to do in Mary Immaculate.
I rather think Albert is enjoying this part of the speech.
We will find a new operation.
Limerick East): Yet no progress has been made in education. There has been no action. We have larger classes and 1,200 highly qualified young primary teachers are going from substitute job to substitute job and hoping eventually they might get a job in London. I think the expectation this year is that there will be 25 fulltime jobs in Irish primary schools. At the same time we have career guidance teachers, briefed by the Minister, encouraging young people to go into the training colleges to have a fulfilling career in Irish education.
I tell the Minister there is a great deal of anger out there and if we are talking about issues, battle there will be, whether long and tedious or short and sharp, and I think I am right in my conclusion that the composition of the Government will still be a Government without an overall majority in this House. The Taoiseach, whoever he is — and if the poor man over there, after four years, misses again on the fifth the head count could go seriously wrong in this House——
(Interruptions.)
(Limerick East):——because we would be proposing Deputy Alan Dukes——
That is all you will be doing.
(Limerick East): Our friends in the Progressive Democrats and the Labour Party and the Independents we are friendly with who have joined in common cause against the Government's more insane proposals over the last two years might just decide collectively to make Deputy Alan Dukes Taoiseach, even on a close finish. I know that would not upset the Minister in the least.
Not in the least.
(Limerick East): This could be “Opportunity Knocks” for Albert but “Opportunity Knocks” is not quite there yet. The best service we could do now is have the Minister ask to adjourn the House so that he can go and consult his Taoiseach because we are prepared——
To go now?
(Limerick East): Any time.
Are they prepared to go now?
(Limerick East): I do not think the Minister will have that privilege for another while, if ever. There is a County Limerick man with a very strong interest as well and it is not I.
I would like to return to the motion. I have been tracing the issues which might arise in any election over the next two years to illustrate the difficulties any party will have in achieving an overall majority. In those circumstances this type of procedure within the House guarantees the stability of a minority Government. All the crunch issues ultimately are financial issues. I know Deputy McDowell will remind us that what we are proposing is unconstitutional.
He always says that.
(Limerick East): It is not unconstitutional. It is always a lawyer's debating point. Where an élite cannot come up with a serious argument they talk down to the laity from the extent of their knowledge and say something is unconstitutional. Of course it is not unconstitutional and it is quite easy to develop a procedure where both the rights and responsibilities of a Minister for Finance and his Government can be protected and where this Parliament can get more power in the interests of all the people. That can give rise to the kind of stability I believe we will need to pursue the kind of policies which are still necessary into the medium term.
I listened with interest to what Deputy Dukes and Deputy Noonan had to say and I do not see why they wasted their energy and their efforts in trying to initiate an election campaign. There is no election campaign and they should have kept their long litany for such a campaign, whenever it might come. Neither they nor I will decide whether there is to be a majority Government in this House. The people will decide. If we take one line from the Tallaght strategy and strip away the rhetoric it is clear that the spirit of what they are saying is one thing but the practicalities are totally different. Two men who held senior positions in Government are trying to con the people into believing that the answer to all our problems lies in this motion, but they know that the practicalities are totally different. They are starting off an election campaign which they believe is under way. I often heard about the fellow who comes too early.
The Minister should stick to the script. Even though it is bureaucratic it is a hell of a lot better.
I will not. What I am about to say may not please the Deputy one iota. I wonder about the reality of trying to bring about a general election. Some people over there would like to have a general election because Fine Gael would suffer such a bad defeat that they might get rid of one Deputy Alan Dukes. Is there some other reason? I am not interested in their problems. I am interested in the pragmatic reality of doing a job. They are talking fairyland stuff.
A Government, whether in a minority or a majority, is still the Government, responsible to the people for their actions. Deputies opposite would like the licence which they have taken from time to time to come in here with nice proposals knowing full well that under the Constitution and under the rules of procedure in this House only the Government can bring forward motions for expenditure. They know it better than I do. Why try to con the people into believing that bringing forward a motion like this is the answer to all our problems when they know in their heart and soul it is not and that only the Government are responsible to the people?
The Minister's predecessor excised two whole paragraphs from his script dealing with the argument about the Constitution.
Truth always hurts.
Deputy Dukes has a good hearing without interruptions. Let us hear the Minister.
The Minister is enjoying himself.
Deputy Carey will have his chance later.
Of course I am. I listened to hypocritical talk about someone shedding tears on this side of the House. I would need a basin to catch some of the tears over there. These people who were in Government for four and a half years now have the answer to all the problems of the country in this motion. Not only did they have a majority in this House but a majority in Government. What did they do about it? Nothing. They left the problem twice as bad as when they took office and now they try to convince the country that this simple motion will solve all problems. For heaven's sake, grow up. Nobody will buy that sterile debate any more. People know the realities of 240,000 unemployed and a debt of £25 billion which has to be serviced every day of the week. Do not hide it from the people. Do not pretend to have the answers to all the problems. Nobody will believe it. I would not pretend that. I did not pretend it for the four and a half years when I was in Opposition.
(Interruptions.)
I remember when Deputy Carey said one night he would go to the Library. I stood and waited for him to come back from the Library but he failed to find anything there to back up his case. I will be speaking for another 25 minutes. If Deputy Carey can go the Library and bring back something to contradict what I am saying I will bow to his wisdom.
He will get the 1977 manifesto, the one the Minister has not read.
The supporters of this motion have attempted to present this as a technical change designed to improve public expenditure control. In reality there would be a fundamental change in the procedures under which the Government's responsibilities for public finances are discharged in this House. There is nothing new in this motion. It is a rehash of proposals put forward in 1987, a repeat of the Tallaght strategy. I have read it all before. The Dáil rejected similar proposals tabled by Deputy Noonan in October 1987 and the Government recommend that it should do so again on this occasion.
Let me remind the House of what was said by the Minister for Finance on the subject during the October 1987 debate. He pointed out that the proposals would entail "a major change in the respective responsibilities of the Government and of this House in settling the Estimates". He continued:
It is the function of the Government, under our constitutional system, to make proposals on these matters. Under Deputy Noonan's proposal, individual Deputies would have the right to put forward amendments to reduce the amounts provided in the subheads of individual Estimates, and to increase them, by the same amounts, in other subheads of the same Estimates. The Book of Estimates laid by the Government before the House would, in other words, become little more than a draft set of proposals, subject to unpredictable and possibly major change.
These remarks remain as valid now as they were then.
This motion, if passed, would undermine the Government's constitutional responsibilities for the public finances. It is important that this should be clearly understood from the outset. I am surprised that Deputy Dukes who has had so much experience in Government should engage in sterile debate. He knows exactly what the position is in relation to Estimates under the Constitution and the procedures of this House, yet he brings forward this motion.
The essential feature of our constitutional system in this regard is that the right of initiative in relation to public finance is vested in the Government alone. Article 17.2 of the Constitution stipulates:
Dáil Éireann shall not pass any vote or resolution, and no law shall be enacted, for the appropriation of revenue or other public moneys unless the purpose of the appropriation shall have been recommended to Dáil Éireann by a message from the Government signed by the Taoiseach.
It is clearly stated and unequivocal. Why do the main Opposition party come in with this motion when they know it flies in the face of the Constitution? If they wanted to redress that position they would have to talk about a referendum to change the Constitution. If they engaged in such a debate I would have some respect for them but I cannot have any respect for this.
This constitutional position is reflected in Dáil Standing Orders. Standing Order 123 states that Bills involving the appropriation of revenue or other public moneys may only be initiated by a member of the Government. Standing Order 124 lays down that every grant of money proposed for the public service — in other words the Estimates — is to be considered by the Dáil on a motion which may only be made by a member of Government. Standing Orders also stipulate that the motion on the Estimates shall be decided without amendment; yet here is a motion asking that all of them be open to amendment. The constitutional position and the procedural arrangements for the conduct of Dáil business are therefore in agreement. It is the Government's prerogative to propose expenditure through the Estimates and the Dáil's responsibility to either adopt or reject these proposals.
Advocates of the motion suggest that its adoption will lead to more effective control of public expenditure and point to procedures in place in budgetary systems in other countries which allow for negotiation between the Executive and the Legislature on expenditure proposals. I have studied these systems and have drawn the conclusion that where effective budgetary control has been achieved it is despite and not because of these systems. The proposition that horse trading between Government and Parliament in order to secure the passage of expenditure proposals could improve public expenditure control is not credible.
(Limerick East): Here is a motion on the amendment.
We will come to that aspect of it in a minute. I am not arguing against the legitimacy of debate and constructive suggestions. I am arguing about the situation as it is enshrined in the Constitution and in Standing Orders of the Dáil which is the situation the Deputy and I have to deal with.
(Limerick East): The motion asks to change Standing Orders.
The motion asks a lot more than that and the Deputy knows that quite well.
The real issue in public expenditure management is not the sophistication of the system of parliamentary controls but rather the determination of the Government of the day to take the necessary decisions to curtail spending. One need not look beyond the history of the past few years to realise the truth of this. This motion is coming from a party that had a majority in Government and a majority in the House, that let public expenditure run wild, that doubled the national debt. If I did not have to contend with and service that, I would have introduced a budget last January of £1 billion surplus. They have the hard neck and the audacity to come in here and say that is the answer to all our problems.
Not since 1927 has this party had a majority in the House.
They had a majority in Government with their partners, and why did they go in if they did not want to do it?
Deputies Carey and Noonan had their opportunity. Deputy Noonan should at least comply with the normal requirements of the House and listen to the person in possession, whether he likes it or not. If the Deputy does not like it the alternative is in his own feet.
It is the responsibility of the Government to determine their plans and priorities for public spending and to seek the approval of the Dáil for those plans. If these plans do not command the support of the Dáil, then clearly it ceases to be possible for the Government to manage their affairs with all the consequences that flow from that. It is patently unworkable to suggest that the Government could be obliged by a vote of the Dáil to implement and to be ultimately accountable for spending programmes which do not form part of their own priorities. To do so would be to blur accountability leading to less effective Government. Above all, it would signal a weakening in the ability of Governments to manage the public finances.
Under Deputy Noonan's motion the Book of Estimates would cease to be the authoritative statement of Government spending plans which it is at present. It would reduce instead to the status of a discussion document. Individual Deputies would be free to put forward changes and amendments to the Government's published Estimates. Subhead allocations could be increased in one area and reduced in another not only within individual Votes but also between Votes in an overall Vote group. This is simply a recipe for confusion, disruption and delay and it would totally undermine the present effective procedural framework.
(Limerick East): And the Department of Finance would not like it.
I might not like it either. I am here to do a job of work. I know how I should do it and I will not let the Deputy propose all the cuts and make me responsible for them; I would not buy that too easily.
The Minister did not enjoy any of the cuts.
The Deputy must be joking. Did he? Fine Gael talked about them for four and a half years but they did not bring in any of them. The pressures which interest groups in our society already bring to bear on parliamentary representatives is severe. Members of this House can, I am sure, well imagine how much more severe that pressure would be if Government spending plans were to be presented in the form of a discussion draft. Not alone would the advocates of increased spending become more vocal, so also would the supporters of expenditure programmes included in the Government's Estimates but identified for reduction by vote of the Dáil.
I doubt if Deputy Noonan would disagree with me when I say that there was far too much pressure exercised by small groups in society who were able to twist the arms and bend the ears of Members of this House. We are getting out of our problems but we have a long way to go. I do not think anybody in this House would advocate going back to leaving the door open to pressure groups to decide what the Government of the day or this House should do. The consequences do not bear thinking about.
It has been a difficult enough task for this Government to bring the public finances under control and it is nonsensical to suggest that a Dáil "free-for-all" on the annual Estimates would in any way assist in this task. It is far too easy to increase expenditure. Every Deputy in this House will have little difficulty with producing a shopping list of programmes, bodies, and schemes which he believes should have higher funding. However, while it is easy to be an advocate of higher expenditure, it is much more difficult to identify, implement and stand over reductions in spending — as our predecessors know only too well.
Under the motion, the Government would have to implement reductions in expenditure to offset the cost of additions decided by the Dáil, even if it did not agree with those reductions. No Government could reasonably be expected to do that.
The proposals would totally disrupt the existing long-standing arrangements for voting and controlling expenditure. If the Dáil were to be allowed to increase and reduce subhead provisions, Departments would have to wait until the Dáil had passed their Estimates before they knew how much was available for each subhead.
Let us just think of the practicalities of that. One would have to wait until an Estimate got into the House. Depending on how the Whips were operating the business it could be four months down the line before that Estimate would be even through this House. Then we would be talking about making adjustments here and adjustments there. What would the Department do in the meantime for four months, since their expenditure depends on the Estimate being passed? We would end up back in the situation we were in years ago where we did not see Estimates at all except to just vote them through at the end of the year. We brought them forward for discussion to try to improve the situation and have discussion on them early.
You did a good job on that.
We are talking reality. That is only the first step.
(Limerick West): We could have it all decided before Christmas, before the start of the year. They are published.
How many times had Fine Gael got them in before the start of the year?
The local authorities do not get their money until April or May.
I know, and, because they have not got the money early enough in the year, they are running around trying to spend it in November and December when it is lashing rain and it is bad value for money. That is certainly a problem. It is a problem I intend to attack but not in the silly way that this motion approaches it. If the Deputy read my budget speech he would know where I was making the start.
Under the proposed amendment the Minister for Finance would have to become involved in a time-consuming and bureaucratic certification process in cases where proposals to reduce expenditure would not achieve the savings claimed, and could have to give oral evidence in public before a Committee of Public Expenditure to explain the reasons for his certification. There are a number of objections to this. First, responsibility for presenting Estimates to the House lies with the individual Ministers responsible, not the Minister for Finance, and to cast him in the role proposed would be difficult to reconcile with this sound, established practice.
(Interruptions.)
It is nonsense for people who have been in Government to suggest that I should have to give detail of the Department of the Environment or Department of Health to a public expenditure committee. If some backbencher who was never in Government suggested that one could say "That is fair enough, he does not know the difference" but these people should know the difference. The idea that the Minister for Finance should appear before a Committee of the House to explain and defend a certificate he had given is, I suggest, an undesirable departure from existing practices where Ministers answer to the full House.
In reality the Minister for Finance could end up spending a considerable part of his time appearing before a Committee of Public Expenditure on potentially all Estimates, arguing detailed costings with Deputies who did not have any detailed background knowledge of the matters involved. Deputy Gay Mitchell would have a ball. The Minister could well end up having little or no time for anything else. I do not believe that is what the people of Ireland would expect me, as Minister for Finance, to do all the time. Certainly the people who elect me down in Longford would expect me to do a little more than that.
The arrangements proposed would almost certainly lead to demands for more back-up staff for the Committee of Public Expenditure to enable them to duplicate and second-guess the detailed costing figures produced by the Department of Finance and the other Departments involved. In view of the fact that nobody ever seems to agree with the Department of Finance figures, their actions or otherwise, it would be just one long harangue. No work would be done in the committee and in 12 month's time you would wonder why you ever produced such a recipe for disaster.
This Government have already made a significant contribution to improving Dáil procedures for consideration of the Estimates. As I have said, in each of the past two years we have published the Estimates of departmental spending well in advance of the financial year and we have provided Government time for a general discussion on these Estimates, again well before the beginning of the financial year. That is the way this House should continue to do its business. Our predecessors in Government who have spoken long about such an innovation produced a document titled How to Manage the Nations Finances or some such name. Whatever happened to that document? Was it buried along with all the other documents they produced when in Government?
Deputy Bruton gave the Minister a good illustration of that.
He loves illustrating but he is always short on action. He is great for ideas and putting them in booklets——
The former Deputy MacSharry did not think that when you implemented his budget.
——but when you look for the action there is none. Apart from ensuring that the Dáil was given adequate notice of the Government's spending plans for the year ahead, another central reason for the early tabling of the Estimates was to give spending Departments and agencies time and clear prior guidance on how much they would have to spend, on what the Government wished them to spend it and on the measures they had to implement if they were to remain within the allocations decided. This major improvement in financial procedures would be greatly weakened if Deputy Noonan's motion was agreed, since spending agencies would not know whether the allocations by subhead published in the Government's Book of Estimates would fall to be reduced or increased. They would have no firm basis for planning, and financial planning and control systems would be seriously weakened.
The scope for disruption of spending programmes is potentially far-reaching. There are very many ways in which a given amount of money in an Estimate could, in theory, be redistributed over subheads. Different Deputies could well have contradictory ideas on how the reallocation should be made. The uncertainty which spending agencies would face could be very great, and would presumably, continue until their Estimates had been voted on by the Dáil. This could result in their being left in a financial limbo for weeks, if not months, precisely at the time when their energies should be directed to putting in place the measures required to live within their financial allocations as decided by the Government. Such a situation is simply unacceptable.
Overall, the proposals in this motion would complicate, slow down and weaken the machinery for settling the Estimates. This is the last thing we need at present. They would introduce major uncertainty and weakness into public expenditure control, and hence into our whole budgetary system. The Government have discharged effectively their responsibilities in relation to the public finances. Over the last two years we have had a difficult task to perform in bringing the public finances back on to a more even keel. We have had to make many difficult choices and implement many hard decisions and we have not shirked that responsibility. The changes proposed in this motion would lessen Government control over the public finances. They will put uncertainty in the place of firm and decisive management. They would put at risk the progress we have made in reducing Government borrowing. With the task of the restoration of order to the public finances still a primary national objective, I find it hard to see how any Member of this House could claim that the changes proposed in this motion would advance this task one iota. I would be the last person to stand up here and say that the system we have is perfect; it is far from it, but I hope I am around long enough to make some fundamental changes in it.
The Department even cut the Minister's script and left him with five minutes to spare.
They could leave me with only half the time because they know perfectly well, as the Deputy should, that I do not need a script at all. I always know what I am talking about.
Any good idea is shot down by the Department of Finance. The question of financial services was shot down for five years and now it is a glorious thing. The same applies to this matter. They will just shoot it down.
It is a terrible admission by a Deputy who was part of a Government for four and a half years to come into this House and openly admit that they had a good idea for that length of time and that as a Government they stood back and let the Department of Finance do their business for them.
They will shoot down this idea too.
If Deputy Carey puts any good idea that is workable and worth while in front of me I guarantee him that if I approve of it the Department of Finance will not turn it down. That is the difference between firm, decisive management of government and standing back to let the theorists do the job. We have been elected to do a job and we will do it. I happened to hear in the corridors that the previous Government toyed for a couple of years with the idea of a tax amnesty but the Department of Finance shot it down, as one of the Deputy's colleagues said. That is a terrible admission after four and a half years in Government.
Deputy Noonan is talking about going into the public arena. Maybe he is wasting his energies far too soon; however that is for him to judge. He is talking about telling people about the problems that exist while Deputy Carey is prepared to admit openly that for four and a half years the Government had good ideas and they knew how to solve problems but the Department of Finance would not let them do anything. They are not entitled to be ever re-elected to this House or into Government if they openly admit that. That is not why the people elect a Government.
That script is a monument to the Minister.
One thing that is certain in regard to this Government is that while we are a minority Government, we are the Government. We will carry responsibility for public finances and will be accountable to the people for the decisions we took in those two and a half years in Government. Far from what Deputy Noonan might think——
There were no ideas in the last budget.
——as to how the people will respond to this when they get their chance——
Excuse me, Minister, I want to advise Deputy Carey that I am not going to tolerate any more of this corncraking. Deputy Carey has interrupted persistently. Maybe he got the impression that the Minister appreciates his co-operation but whether that is so or not the Chair advises Deputy Carey now that he cannot be interrupting in that fashion. He will get his own opportunity to address the House tomorrow evening and I will give him the protection that I think the Minister should have now.
I do not think Deputy Carey will take his opportunity tomorrow night. He likes to come in here and have a bit of fun across the House. We are dealing with serious business. This is not a fun House and this is not a serious motion. It could be better described as a fun motion because nobody sat down to think out the realities of the whole management of the public finances. They looked at Europe, saw committee systems in operation and decided that we should have the same system. They never sat down to think where the Government, the budgetary or the whole management position comes in. Deputies may agree with management by committee system but there are plenty of examples of good businesses gone under because of committee systems under which there was nobody to make decisions.
I am all in favour of legitimate debate in this House and of giving this House more and more power but I am not in favour, nor would anybody who seriously thinks it out, of having Government by opposition. People elect the Government and that Government should be responsible for their actions. We do not for one moment hold out the view that we have a monopoly of wisdom. We are an economic management team who sit around a table and make decisions. If anybody in the country said that out of every ten decisions we took they were all right I would not believe him but other people do not make decisions at all. Committees have the happy knack of not making decisions. They go around in circles and try to get consensus but at the end of the day somebody has to grasp the nettle.
That is my idea of management. I agree the system is not what I would like it to be——
(Limerick East): Are the Cabinet not the most powerful committee in the country?
——but I can assure Deputy Noonan that I will start the process of change but not in the way he has suggested here. I ask the House to reject the motion.
(Limerick East): We will await the Minister's proposals with interest.
Some of the earlier debate on this motion disgressed into prognosticating about whether a general election is likely.
The Deputy need not worry.
I was interested, looking at the Minister's expression and decoding some of his comments, to realise that he belongs to the cautious element in the Cabinet who are increasingly putting their oar into the issue and, with a degree more experience than others, advising the Taoiseach that he should not test the waters too precipitately, and that he should do his business cautiously and not have a general election. I think some of the other members of the Government are trigger happy. In the week of the death of the inventor of the spaghetti western there is a trio of Government Ministers who are trigger happy — Deputies Ahern, Burke and Flynn — the title of the original spaghetti western leaps immediately to mind——
"The Sunday Kids".
No, "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly".
(Interruptions.)
It is not unparliamentary.
I was only referring to a film, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I was merely talking about the trigger happy nature of——
It is very entertaining, Deputy McDowell, if nothing else but perhaps the Deputy would apply himself to what is contained in the motion.
I do not think there is going to be an election in the near future or that the Taoiseach is willing to risk all on a throw of the dice at present.
I hope he is not.
I do not think he feels confident that if he were to face the people and ask for their verdict on the performance of the Government he would get a positive result. Looking at what has happened during the past few months in particular, it is not a matter of the Taoiseach becoming impatient with the unruliness of the Opposition, rather he is becoming exasperated by the under-performance of his own Cabinet. The Minister for Agriculture and Food let him down one night and the Minister for Defence the next. This is stuff of which——
Deputy McDowell, the Chair is prompted to ask you what all this is in aid of. Surely, Deputy McDowell, who would claim to be a respector of Standing Orders, realises he cannot go on speculating on an election. Whether he would welcome it or not is immaterial.
I am merely pointing out that there is no good reason to expect an election and therefore——
The Deputy is making an election speech, yet there is no election.
——we should address the serious problems that this House faces now.
Those fellows are making election speeches.
The Leas-Cheann Comhairle was not present so he does not realise to what I am replying, but if I am being irrelevant, then I am being a lot less irrelevant than many others who spoke before me.
I am sure Deputy McDowell would take what is proper as the precedent and not what might have been established as being in order.
This is the second time in two years that the Dáil is being asked to vote on this proposal, the gist of which is that the Estimates presented by the Government each year should be subject to a process of amendment by the Dáil. In favour of this proposal two conditions are laid down by Fine Gael; first, that the power of amendment should be restricted to varying amounts within each Vote — that would mean allowing the Dáil to allocate moneys within Votes — and, second, that the Minister could veto such a change if any increased spending was not matched by a cut elsewhere. It is worth noting that the Fine Gael Party made this proposal on 20 October 1987 in an amendment to a Government motion asking the House to note the Estimates. It was defeated on 23 October 1987 by 70 votes to 38.
In the course of that debate at the end of which my party, the Progressive Democrats, supported the Government, I spoke about the Fine Gael proposal and said I did not think the change proposed was a good idea and indicated that the Progressive Democrats would give their reasons for not supporting the proposal at a later stage. At that stage, I described what was proposed by Deputy Noonan as "superficially attractive". I note he has predicted that I would say that this particular proposal was at variance with the Constitution. He suggested that this was a lawyer's trick, a device which lawyers fling around this House on occasion on the unsuspecting laity and whenever they are stuck for a point they say something is unconstitutional. Perhaps there is some substance in that, may be on occasion the legal eagles in this House do resort to that tactic, but on this occasion I can say, with some degree of confidence, that it is not a mere device, what is proposed in this motion does conflict with the Constitution and does conflict with the role envisaged for the Government in the Constitution.
One of the things we had better not get carried away with is our own power at the expense of the Executive's power. We have a Constitution with three pillars — the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary. To say to the Executive that they must come to the House every year with a shopping list, or an opening bid, in a debate which would turn into a negotiating process with the rest of this House is the way in which the budgetary affairs of this country should be conducted, is to take a very radical step indeed. Deputy Noonan's arguments conceded what I think is the fundamental contradiction in his proposal. He said he could envisage this proposal being married in some sense to a fixed term Government and could envisage it effectively, therefore, being part of some system such as the one they have in the United States — a congressional system. If there were a fixed term Government and a fixed term Congress, then it might be appropriate to establish a system in which the Executive, which enjoyed office for a fixed term, had to negotiate on an ongoing basis with the Congress on budgetary matters, but we forget in this House that we have one power — the power at a moment's notice to dismiss the Executive. That is the kernel of the difference.
Under our system, as I understand it, under the 1937 Constitution and the one that preceded it, the Executive is responsible to this House, and at any time it can be told to go and pack its bags, and we give it its head and tell it to make decisions. We delegate to the Executive, to some extent, our own legislative power and tell it get on with the business of running the country. We do not ask the Executive to get involved in a tangling process with the Dáil in relation to how the country is run. I do not like chastising people who come into this House with radical ideas but I feel on this occasion it is a radically wrong idea and it would be slightly dishonest of me if I were to change my position from that of two years ago and it would be less than truthful of me if I were to say that for any political purpose I thought it was constitutionally valid or sustainable.
It is noteworthy — and the Minister referred to this towards the end of his contribution to this debate — that a White Paper was produced on this general area by the Government of which Deputy John Bruton was a member, called A Better Way to Plan The Nation's Finances. I look at that White Paper to see how this proposal measured up and to see if it was consistent with what was suggested in that White Paper. A close study of that White Paper shows that it does not conform with the substance of this proposal.
The White Paper, authored by Deputy Noonan, did not suggest that the Dáil should have the right to reallocate Government spending. It did suggest a committee type examination of the Estimates, with which I totally agree, and that Deputies might propose amendments either to reduce the Estimate for a particular item or to impose preconditions for expenditure on particular items, but — and this is the very important "but"— the proposals made at that time by Deputy Bruton gave the Minister the right to reject the amendment, and the right of a Deputy to propose an amendment was circumscribed by the fact that it could only be made if the Government, having listened to the argument, agreed with it. That is a totally different idea from the one set out in this proposal, which is to force a reluctant Government to go with a budget which they do not accept.
It has been argued — and stated here tonight by Deputy Noonan — that there is nothing in principle wrong within a Vote in the Book of Estimates in allowing the Dáil to move money from one subhead to another. That sounds a very technical thing to do and as if it could not have huge consequences but it could mean moving hundreds of millions of pounds from hospital care to community care which would reverse the whole thrust of the Government's health policy. Is it seriously contended that this House should leave in place a Government but tell them to reverse the thrust on all their policies and to do things to which they are diametrically opposed? If so, the authors of this proposal misunderstand the relationship which the Constitution envisages for the Executive and the Legislature. I do not accept for one minute that it was ever thought that the Dáil would force a reluctant Government to implement a budget with which they disagreed.
As the Minister said, it would be even more absurd to have a situation where the cuts to counterbalance increased expenditure in one area were ones to which the Government were totally and implacably opposed. How could a minority Government — which Deputy Noonan had in mind — be then asked to implement it? This body are collectively responsible and are supposed to resign when they get to a stage that they do not agree with what they are asked to do — that is the convention at any rate — and how could you possibly ask a body like that to take a budget which was not of their making and to implement it against their own political judgment? The idea is misconceived.
The Dáil is constitutionally obliged to consider the Estimates, not to rewrite them, and the proposals now made would effectively make the Government's Estimates into an opening bid in a process which might, each year, force the Government to follow policies in which they were wholly at odds with a majority in the Dáil. The present convention that the control of State spending is a prerogative of the Executive would be swept away and we would put in its place some kind of mutant system akin to the congressional system in America. The Proposal if implemented — which it will not be — would tear up the idea of an Executive accountable to a parliament and put in its place an Executive obliged to negotiate with a congress. That is not provided for in our Constitution and it is contrary to not just the letter but the spirit of the Constitution.
Deputy Noonan is not an unintelligent and unsuspecting layman who is incapable of understanding the legal effect of such a provision. Article 17.2 of the Constitution requires any expenditure from this House to be done on the recommendation of the Taoiseach. The word "recommendation" is of some significance. How could the Taoiseach possibly recommend to this House something with which he fundamentally disagreed? It makes nonsense of the wording of the Constitution and it must be read as meaning that any expenditure is on the motion of the Government, in accordance with their wishes and that it carries the authority and responsibility of the Government and not of this House. No other interpretation of the Article is possible. It is not a matter of a lawyer with a veneer of learning trying to shove a sophisticated argument down the throats of unsuspecting laymen, it is simple basic logic. If Deputy Noonan studied the Article, he would realise that there can be no spending by this House unless the Taoiseach recommends it. It follows that the majority in this House, where you have a minority Government with the Taoiseach introducing Estimates, could not be obliged to go with policies or Estimates which he did not accept. It would do violence to the language of the Constitution to interpret the Article otherwise and, therefore, this proposal is wrong in principle.
It would be far better if the House went back to Deputy Bruton's White Paper to look at what could be done by way of genuine reform of our Estimates procedures. It is noteworthy that some progress has been made, particularly by this Government but also by the Government of which Deputy Bruton was a member, in implementing some of the ideas in that White Paper. This included the comprehensive public expenditure programmes and the Committee on Public Expenditure which were there under the previous Government; the introduction of Estimates for noting by this House in the autumn of the year prior to the financial year to which they relate are steps which were envisaged by that White Paper but which are still incomplete. We have a lot more to do and one of the principal things is to respect the letter and spirit of the Constitution in carrying out what we are supposed to do, to consider the Estimates. We should not have a rushed debate in a couple of hours at the end of a long hot summer day in June when we run through three or four Departments of State in a few hours. This involves Deputies, myself included, making points of particular interest to them but without any consideration of the substance of the Estimate or its global or budgetary strategic importance.
With the greatest respect to all Members, Estimates debates are a bit of a farce because they do not amount to a considered evaluation of the Estimate but to an occasion on which individual Deputies let off steam. They talk about individual items of interest to them at length in an unstructured manner. Would it not be far better if this House when it received the Estimates in October — as it has done for the last two years — established a committee which would then report on the Estimates to the House and that the House would then consider the report of the committee and the Estimate together and make any points it wanted to in relation to the report and the Estimate? That would be far more productive than the present system.
It is not just Deputy Bruton who has addressed his mind to this issue. I note that Deputy John Kelly has written about it in his book on the Irish Constitution where he examines the implications of the Constitution in regard to the control by this House of public expenditure and the consideration of the Estimates. It is quite clear that this House does not do what the Constitution requires of it, to consider the Estimates as soon as possible after they are presented. That is a breach of our constitutional duty and something of which we should not be proud. We should tackle it as a matter of urgency.
Rather than attempting to embroil the Executive in a budgetary tangling match which would spell the end for decisive Government, the Dáil should take seriously the role which it does have. We cannot have 166 Ministers for Finance. Not everybody can be a member of the Executive and just because it is in a minority position does not mean that it is open to the rest of the House to abrogate its functions or to decide that everybody will be a little Minister in his or her own right. Sometimes, when I think about the composition of this House — again I include myself — I am reminded of the composition of the workforce of Waterford Glass, that we divide into cutters and blowers. It is important to remember that some of us have one function and others, from time to time, have another function. The people who have a function in regard to acting as the Executive of the State are required by our Constitution to be Members of this House and to be responsible to it.
The best thing we can do in relation to budgetary reform of this House is to follow the line laid out in Deputy Bruton's White Paper. I want to be generous to him; it is a good programme in general terms for making this House take its own role seriously. It has been only half-implemented, a lot of further implementation is needed. The Minister has said that he is willing to examine individual proposals for reform of the budgetary process in the House and I suggest that he should refer to the White Paper of 1984-85 and try to implement a few of the sensible reforms laid out in it.
There is no doubt that the House has serious difficulties in living up to its constitutional role. There is equally no doubt that the House is being invited tonight not to carry out its own functions properly but, because it is not carrying out its own functions, to invade the province of the Executive. That is a mistake. Although I am reluctant to be critical of any Member who suggests reform, particularly radical reform, I think this is radically wrong, as I said before. Since I said so in October 1987, and believed it then, and because I have not changed my views in the meantime, I have to indicate yet again that the Progressive Democrats cannot support this proposal.
Debate adjourned.