This debate must conclude within one hour.
Appropriation Bill, 1995: Second and Subsequent Stages.
I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time".
I have no problem whatsoever in ensuring that we have a full and proper debate in this House on the way our financial affairs have been managed since this Government took office just over a year ago.
The analytical need to reduce the rate of increase in public expenditure is one shared by all political parties. Since all political parties have had an opportunity of being in office since 1990, with the exception of the Green Party, all Members will readily understand that need. Therefore, all senior politicians if not all political parties will be well aware of the difficulties of meeting specified targets in the very necessary but nevertheless difficult task of reducing the rate of increase in public expenditure.
On the formation of this Government we decided to insert in our policy document, A Government of Renewal, our objectives for reducing the rate of increase in public expenditure in real terms. This year we set a target of 6 per cent. Following negotiations with my colleagues, based on the revised Book of Estimates published after the budget, our projected nominal increase this year on the Non-Capital Supply Services Book of Estimates, including inflation for the year of approximately 2.5 per cent — though forecast to be slightly higher at the beginning of the year — was 6.9 per cent.
With the agreement of the House we are enacting the Appropriation Bill, the legal instrument which gives effect to the expenditure of moneys raised through Estimates voted by this House, original and supplementary.
In that respect Deputy McCreevy made the charge that, rather than that figure representing an increase of 6.9 per cent on the Book of Estimates, as published after the budget, it represented an increase of the order of 12 or 13 per cent. Obviously, we shall have to enter into a long, tortuous debate on figures — an accountant's paradise — when no doubt Deputy McCreevy will take great pleasure in displaying his virtuosity in analysing the various columns of figures. He is a responsible politician for whom I have a great deal of respect but, having heard his charge, I asked my departmental officials — from a purely factual accountancy viewpoint — to address it as best they could. This House or democracy is not served in any way by obscuring figures or misleading people and I will not be a party to any such endeavour.
When replying I shall respond to any points not covered in my introductory remarks. Deputy McCreevy is reported as having quoted a figure of 12 to 13 per cent as representing increased public expenditure in 1995 when account is taken of the Supplementary Estimates of £203 million, the proceeds of the tax amnesty in 1994 and equal treatment payments due to women. That calculation is utterly false and misleading for the following reasons. First, it includes in the 1995 figure the full amount of £203 million for Supplementary Estimates, wrong for two reasons. The figure of £203 million is the total figure, which includes current and capital spending, whereas the current element of the quoted figure of £203 million is £157 million. The total figure of £203 million, or the current element of £157 million, is a net non-capital supply services figure whereas we are dealing with gross non-capital supply services. The correct gross non-capital supply services figure for the Supplementary Estmates represents a further reduction to a figure of £114 million. Therefore, the real comparison is represented not in the £203 million but the £114 million.
Second, I do not accept that deducting the proceeds of the tax amnesty from the 1994 base is justifiable or valid since a significant portion thereof was spent on ongoing items of expenditure such as the pensions liability of An Post and Telecom Éireann; in other words, much of the amnesty-funded spending was not of a once off nature and, therefore, should not be excluded from the 1994 base. We used the benefits of the proceeds of the amnesty to meet liabilities, some of which were ongoing. For that reason it is proper to include them and improper to exclude them from the 1994 base.
In addition, the full amount of the proceeds of the tax amnesty appear to have been deducted from the 1994 base whereas £40 million of capital expenditure included in the total should not have been included.
Thirdly, it is completely wrong to add to the 1995 published figures the additional £114 million equal treatment payments as that amount has already been included in the published figures for the current year; to do so is simply to engage in double-counting.
I want to turn to a third matter of controversy that has arisen in recent days, that is the hepatitis C special fund. The Government decided to establish a tribunal, under the aegis of the Minister for Health, to administer a special compensation scheme for those affected by hepatitis C so that compensation would be paid speedily to those entitled to it without the necessity for lengthy court proceedings. The tribunal hearings will be informal, flexible and take evidence in private, which we consider to be the most effective way of meeting the needs of those affected by hepatitis C. The model of that tribunal is based loosely on that established to compensate the victims of the Stardust tragedy of the early 1980s, when that format was found to be satisfactory all round.
Above all, the establishment of a specific fund into which Exchequer funds will be paid as soon as possible is the clearest way of showing that the Government intends doing all it can to ensure the tribunal is effective. The Minister for Health has engaged in extensive, continuous discussions with the group known as Positive Action who grouped together to make representations to him on compensation for those women who were the unfortunate victims of this tragedy. In order to demonstrate maximum good faith in addressing their real fears and concerns, a substantial figure has to be voted and clearly placed on the record of the House as being available to meet their perceived needs and calculated compensation requirements. Therefore, the Government freely, openly and properly made this provision of £60 million. There was nothing hidden about any of this; the Government's policy on hepatitis C has been reiterated by the Minister for Health on many occasions and spelled out by him in a debate here on Tuesday evening last. Equally, so far as accounting for public funds is concerned, neither is there anything hidden. It has been made clear to the Dáil how much is involved, as of now, and how the fund will be administered. In the first place, a Supplementary Estimate for £60 million has been taken on the 1995 Health Vote in order to provide the requisite funds.
Parts 2 and 3 of the Supplementary Estimate explain that the £60 million would be a payment to a special account for the compensation tribunal. Secondly, the Appropriation Bill now before the Dáil seeks approval for the creation of the special compensation fund into which the money voted in the Supplementary Estimate will be paid. Section 3 of the Bill provides for the creation of the account and for the rules under which it will operate. Again, there is nothing underhanded in what we are doing. It could not be any plainer and is in keeping with established Government financial procedures. I assure the House that the legal advice obtained by my Department indicates that this is a perfectly proper course of action.
I stress that what the Government is doing, namely, introducing a Supplementary Estimate to make money available to be paid into a fund created by the Appropriation Bill, was decided some time ago in the light of official and legal advice on accounting procedures and advice on the best way of supporting the work of the tribunal. There is no question of section 3 having been a last minute addition. The Bill cannot be finalised until all the Supplementary Estimates are known. For that reason it is always one of the last items published and brought before the Dáil each year. If the section had been an afterthought, the Supplementary Estimate would not have taken the format it did. I should also point out that one of the precedents followed in drafting section 3 of the Appropriation Bill was the Air Companies (Amendment) Act, 1993, which created a similar fund to cover the payment of equity to Aer Lingus in the following year. If anyone cares to check, the wording in the Bill and the Act is almost exactly the same.
We have agreed to have a debate on the Estimates which will be published on Monday afternoon. The debate will take place for a number of hours. I am not sure if the final arrangements have yet been agreed between the Whips, but there will be sufficient time for a debate. If Deputy McCreevy is unhappy with the amount of time allotted, I hope he will convey that to his party Whip. We will consider a request for extra time if that is the Opposition's wish, because we have nothing to hide or to fear from a full and comprehensive debate.
The Estimates for 1996 will be published on Monday afternoon and the debate will be on Tuesday. I look forward to that debate because in regard to the 1996 Estimates we have managed to carry out a very difficult task which has eluded many other Governments within the European Union, to make sensible and prudent provision for 1996 in a manner that meets all our obligations and requirements as a Government to honour the Programme for Competitiveness and Work, to ensure essential provision of funds, to maintain existing services on which many people critically depend, and to do so in a way that enhances and secures social cohesion for 1996. We are doing this against a difficult background where other European countries are finding it very hard to maintain budgetary discipline to ensure they meet the Maastricht criteria. I confirm that in 1996 we will meet all the Maastricht criteria, and I am confident that we will be adjudged by the European Commission, with respect to the excessive deficit procedures, to have complied with the requirements as described and adjudicated by the Commission.
I regret there has been some controversy in the way in which this debate has come about. As the Taoiseach said earlier today, the Opposition were offered a debate on this matter. That was my understanding. If that is not correct, I assure Deputy McCreevy that I, as Minister for Finance, have no problem in entering a debate at any stage here or at the Financial Affairs Committee of the House at which both of us participated yesterday afternoon. Let nobody think that this Administration has anything to hide or is defensive about the course of action it has taken or that it has in any way not lived up to the commitments it entered in its programme of renewal. All stages of the Bill which we are now debating will be taken today; this is a necessary legal mechanism to ensure that the moneys voted can be properly appropriated and, consequently, spent within the proper and legitimate obligations that the Constitution imposes on this House.
I wish to make a couple of points about the Appropriation Act, 1995. I will deal with the controversial aspect of the £60 million Health Estimate for hepatitis C victims and then I will refer briefly to the overall Estimates and expenditure outturn for 1995.
Without blowing my own trumpet, I think I know a bit more about the financial procedures of the House than the Taoiseach apparently does, despite his time as Minister for Finance in a previous Government. As the Minister for Finance rightly points out, the Appropriation Bill gives legal effect to the Estimates and any Supplementary Estimates that have been voted by the House throughout the year. There have been debates on Appropriation Bills before to give the House an opportunity to discuss various aspects of the Estimates, but generally that is all it is about, so there is generally no need to have a debate on it.
This Appropriation Bill contains an additional section 3 to get over the illegality which was being perpetrated on the taxpayer by the deception of taking £60 million out of next year's Estimates and voting in a Supplementary Estimate for the Health Vote as was done earlier this week. I have the record of what was said in this House yesterday on the Order of Business and, despite the reasonableness of my friend, the Minister for Finance, the Taoiseach at no stage said that this would be covered by an additional section in any Act. I stand over the charge I laid at the Government's door on Tuesday. I said that what the Government was doing amounted to fraudulent accounting, that it was illegal and technically incorrect. In leaks to eminent journalists which appeared in The Irish Times yesterday and in a subsequent comment by a person in RTE, presumably inspired by the Government, the impression was given that this had been done before and that there was nothing special about this. That is incorrect, and I say that without fear of being contradicted. As my party leader said yesterday morning, in Christmas week of 1993 the then Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications had to introduce the Air Companies Act to which the Minister referred to allow a sum of money to be paid in the way the Minister outlined. Regarding the other two spins that were put on this in the two media organisations concerned regarding the payment of wages and salaries, those wages and salaries were paid on the last pay-day of the year in which they were voted. The said journalists were also given to understand that the same thing was done in regard to An Post. The Minister for Finance, and anybody who was a member of the last Government, know that was also incorrect because that accrued liability had been built up since splitting the old Department of Posts and Telegraphs in 1984. It is not generally known that it had got to a stage where the trustees of the pension fund were about to refuse to act any more if the Government did not honour its liability and pay moneys into the pension fund. It had become so serious that there would have been court cases relating to it. Consequently, out of the proceeds of the tax amnesty, the sum of £70 million was paid to allow the Government to catch up on its liability, and that was for known expenditure which had accrued. More than anybody else in the House, except for members of the last Government, the Minister for Finance knows that what I said on Tuesday and repeated yesterday was correct.
The Minister may be aware of my contribution to the tribunal of inquiry into the fall of the last Government and the Charlie McCreevy theory on the lesson to be learned. In my view the file in the Attorney General's office was forgotten about as happens in large accountants' offices or solicitors' practices. It would have been an embarrassment to state that before the House but it would have been much better than what happened in the end when a large organisation had to think up an excuse as to why it was forgotten about.
When the Government was caught with its hands in the till it should have owned up. The Taoiseach did not do that this morning. He did not refer to the additional section in the Bill. When one makes a mistake the simplest thing to do is own up. Section 3 has the same effect as the Companies Act in 1983 had on Aer Lingus. I stated it was illegal, incorrect and fraudulent accounting and it has proved to be so. The Taoiseach should have owned up to that this morning.
My party leader wrote to the Comptroller and Auditor General late on Tuesday night and before 1 p.m. today he received a reply. The letter states:
Dear Deputy,
Thank you for your letter dated 12 December 1995. I have noted your concern about the propriety and legality of passing a Supplementary Estimate in the circumstances outlined in your letter.
Firstly, I would like to point out that I have no function in relation to the Estimates process which is the exclusive preserve of Dáil Éireann. However, I have two functions in relation to the public finances — a control function and an audit function.
In the independent exercise of my function as Comptroller, I am required to grant credit on the Central Fund on foot of requisitions from the Minister for Finance provided that I am satisfied as to the correctness of the requisition. In regard to requisitions relating to the Supply Services, the passing of an Estimate or, as in this case, a Supplementary Estimate, is regarded as the general basis for granting credit, in the expectation that statutory sanction will be subsequently conferred by the Appropriation Act for the particular year.
In my capacity as Auditor General, I am required as part of my audit to establish the chargeability of sums to Appropriation Accounts. If, as seems likely, the £60 million in question is paid into a special account in 1995 and is charged to the 1995 Appropriation Account for the Health Vote, I will need to consider whether the amount is properly chargeable to the Account. In this connection, I would examine the status of the special account and whether the liability has matured for payment in accordance with Section 24 of the Exchequer and Audit Departments Act, 1866. I can say that my Office has already written to the accounting officers of the Department of Finance and the Department of Health seeking information on aspects of the procedure adopted.
If I become of the opinion that the £60 million is not properly chargeable, I have the power under section 3 (2) of the Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Act, 1993 to report on the matter to Dáil Éireann after raising the question with the relevant accounting officer and the Minister for Finance, if necessary.
I hope that the foregoing has clarified the position for you.
Section 3 deals with the problem of statutory sanction. However, the Comptroller and Auditor General raises a subsequent point I did not consider in the allegations I made on Tuesday that have proved to be correct. The Comptroller and Auditor General is concerned about the status of the special account and whether the liability has matured for payment in accordance with the 1866 Act. He has written to the accounting officers in the Departments of Health and Finance on the matter. I knew one could not pre-pay or accrue and the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach, as a former Minister for Finance, should know that.
The Comptroller and Auditor General raised a most important point which must be considered. He states that even though section 3 deals with the statutory sanction and the illegalities I referred to, there is an additional matter which must be considered. I know the Minister takes his responsibilities seriously but as far as the £60 million is concerned, the Government was found out and it would well behove it and the Taoiseach to own up.
I am prepared to debate the Estimates at any time in any forum and stand over the fact that, taking like with like, the increase in current expenditure in 1995 over 1994 is 12 per cent plus. The Minister for Finance knows that is correct. The increase in current expenditure in 1995 is higher than in 1981. The Minister will remember that famous year and the construction of the Estimates. The increase in 1995 is the highest in 17 years — since 1978. The Minister will remember the inflation rates in those years. Now we have very low rates of inflation and have increased current spending by up to five times the rate of inflation. If any economy can do that please supply the name of the said country. No country is able to do that and survive economically and we will not do so either.
This House has been the victim of a sustained campaign of deception by Government Ministers over the past few days. I find it remarkable now to hear the Minister for Finance's defence of what has happened.
Let us put the record straight. The terms of reference of the hepatitis C tribunal have not yet been finalised and are still the subject of negotiation. This tribunal is not at a point where it can entertain any application from anybody who has suffered as a result of the blood transfusions scandal. Nobody is in a position to claim any of this money now. If a woman presented herself at Government buildings seeking an application form for or the terms of references of the tribunal she would be sent away empty handed.
Negotiations are still taking place with Positive Action and Transfusion Positive as to the terms on which this tribunal will function.
Untrue. The Deputy is out of date.
The Minister of State had better be careful because it is true. I know these negotiations are taking place. Not a single application has been received. No address has been established for the receipt of such applications, yet we are being asked to fund a tribunal which is not sitting.
The Taoiseach has stated falsely that the motivation in giving £60 million to this tribunal now is to reinforce its credibility. The members of that tribunal do not need to be insulted and defamed by policital rhetoric of that kind.
It is part of the process.
They do not need £60 million to reinforce their credibility.
The resources are needed.
It is the first Christmas joke.
None of this is necessary. The £60 million can be put into it next year. None of these people has asked the Minister to put £60 million into an account now so they can have more credibility with the hepatitis C victims. No hepatitis C sufferer will be fooled by such blatant nonsense. No hepatitis C sufferer believes that whether the money is given in the last fortnight of December or the first fortnight of January in any way affects the credibility or competence of the tribunal. A decision was made for budgetary purposes to make this expenditure occur in this financial year and the Taoiseach defended it in these terms. The Taoiseach said it time and again; he accused Fianna Fáil of having done it on many occasions. He let the cat out of the bag and the question now arises as to whether it is legal.
I agree with Deputy McCreevy. The setting up of a special account is a device with no substance. This money is not sitting in a shoe box in the Department of Finance. What is being done is equivalent to an ordinary person such as myself dividing my overdraft into two halves, putting money from one half into the other and claiming I spent money this year. We are talking about borrowed money which does not exist in a real sense. The section even provides for the interest accruing on it to be used. This is the greatest joke of all time. It will go into a special account and some poor civil servant will have to calculate the interest on it, but that will be back to back with the borrowings which financed it. We are not fools.
Let us talk sense. This money is being borrowed. It is equivalent to me shifting money between two overdraft accounts, or mentally dividing my overdraft into two portions, shifting money from one to another and considering it expenditure.
That is about as credible as the Deputy suggesting he is an ordinary person.
I am amused by the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte. The Government had to borrow £1 billion to keep the country going this year and it cannot be in the position of having £60 million in late December to move from one account to another. This money has to be borrowed and we are paying interest on it.
Although there will be deposit interest it will be borrowed at another rate.
Section 3 was framed at a time when it was not known whether the scheme would be in existence and hence it refers to "a scheme established or to be established" for the purpose of compensating the hepatitis C sufferers. That shows how false this transaction is.
Even if one goes through this device of setting up a special account and the Government's overdraft is divided into two ledgers, the Minister is still faced with the problem underlined in the letter from the Comptroller and Auditor General to Deputy Bertie Ahern. The Minister cannot get away with such chicanery unless he can establish that the liability matured in this year.
The Minister accepts and has probably been advised that there is a liability to the hepatitis C victims——
Without having gone to court.
The legal liability will have to be established in the last analysis in the courts. However, I agree one can put money aside for a contingency.
I thank the Deputy for approaching reality.
This situation is different. The Minister is establishing a special fund which is earmarked for the activities of a tribunal which cannot and will not hand out one penny in this year — under the scheme it is impossible for the tribunal to do so. Therefore, the £60 million which is to be allocated to this special account is money in respect of a liability which has not matured in 1995 within the meaning of public accounting procedures.
The Comptroller and Auditor General is an independent officer responsible to this House and not to the Government. I am delighted he sees himself in a position of such independence that he will correspond with Members of the House. The Comptroller and Auditor General makes the point that under section 24 of the 1866 Act the legality of this payment is something he will have to consider. Only a very naïve person would consider that this liability matures in 1995.
If the Comptroller and Auditor General, having reviewed this matter, comes to the opinion that the Minister has acted improperly, the consequences for the Minister are very serious. This will have been a premeditated effort to bend the rules. The Minister will have done so in the face of the Opposition, despite a clear warning shot from the Comptroller and Auditor General and in circumstances in which anybody with common sense would have known that because of the way the tribunal is being established, it could not have given out a single penny of this money in 1995 to any of the women eligible to receive ex gratia compensation.
The special account to be established is a sham to try to circumvent public accounting procedures. I appeal to the Minister to consider his position. If he proceeds with this measure and the Comptroller and Auditor General reports to the House in the fullness of time that what was done was in contravention of public accounting procedures, the implications for the Minister's tenure of office are obvious. I ask the Minister not to go through with this charade but to return to his colleagues in Government, ask for the money to be left out and paid next year and be up front about breaching the guidelines if that has to be done.
The Minister is being sent in by the Government to front for an action which, if the Comptroller and Auditor General in his constitutional role in relation to this House adjudicates was improper, will have stark consequences for the Minister. I say this as a constituency colleague of the Minister; this is a make or break occasion for him. He may get great marks for courage if he gets away with it but it is a resigning matter if the Comptroller and Auditor General reports to the House that the liability was not one which matured in terms of public accounting procedures. It is the Minister's choice to go ahead and make our day. With the greatest of respect, I say to the Minister that he cannot come to this House and say that our advice was this or that — as was done in the Supreme Court decision on the financing of the referendum information campaign. The Minister has been advised by Deputy McCreevy, has had a shot across his bows by the Comptroller and Auditor General and is hearing from the Opposition that if he goes ahead with this, in spite of all the material that has been put before him, it is his own fate he is putting at risk. I suggest that the Minister go back to his colleagues in Government and ask them to drop section 3 and make the books honest and then go ahead and pay the £60 million into this account next year. The Minister would get a much fairer hearing in this House even at this eleventh hour if he decided to adopt that course.
It is the season of forgiveness.
The Opposition would say fair enough because the money will possibly have to be paid out in 1996. If the Minister ignores the advice now and is censured for so doing by the Comptroller and Auditor General, he can blame only himself and his colleagues for having put him up to it. I am not saying that in an unfriendly way. I genuinely am asking the Minister to delete section 3 from the Bill and make this year's and next year's books honest and to abandon this subterfuge which does not fool anybody.
There is nobody on the Government side offering.
On a point of order, Sir, if the Deputy wishes us to contribute, we will. This debate was at the request of the Opposition and if Government speakers were then to offer to speak, we would have howls of protest for taking up the time of this House. May I clarify if time is available to me to reply to the debate?
There are five minutes allocated to the Minister to reply to the debate.
On a point of order, Sir, will there be an opportunity to deal with Committee Stage?
That will depend entirely on how we will get on with Second Stage.
Two central issues, which have been dealt with by the two previous speakers, faced the Minister for Finance in trying to agree the 1996 Estimates. I do not think anybody has any doubt about the problems arising from negotiations with the various Departments and the Minister's difficulties in adhering to the 2 per cent increase in real terms in 1996. I do not think anybody would deny that statement of fact. The Minister then had the difficulties arising from the very genuine problems of women with hepatitis C. The Government accepted that the liability would fall on it and that the cost to the State would be of the order of approximately £60 million. It seems that the guidelines the Government has set for itself will be broken but on top of that the Government faces the difficulty of paying £60 million into a special account to set up the tribunal.
I cannot understand the logic of the Taoiseach's claim that £60 million would need to be established in a fund so that the people would believe the tribunal was serious about its work. The 1996 Estimates will be published on Monday and could have included this £60 million that the Minister has tried — and I fear illegally — to put into the 1995 accounts by way of Supplementary Estimate. The difficulty to which the Taoiseach alluded as enough to undermine the credibility of the tribunal is the difference between Thursday and next Monday. I wonder who is stretching credulity in this House? Clearly, it is the Government.
Having listened to the two previous speakers — I have just received a copy of the Comptroller and Auditor General's letter — it is quite clear that the Minister is caught in a very difficult position. Originally he was caught between the forces of three parties and the demands of 1996 being met. A way out was found in part — he is not out of the woods with the 2 per cent increase in real terms — by some bright spark in keeping the increase to a level that did not exceed the target too seriously and using a mechanism to deal with the £60 million.
Deputy McCreevy quite rightly says that it is always better to be up front when things are going wrong instead of trying to chase something that is unravelling in illegality. The Minister should stand back and put the record straight. Nobody would deny this Minister his right and his opportunity to do this. He is far more experienced than I and would know the consequences of events when they go out of control, particularly when he is being pulled in so many directions. I think he realises the consequences of this.
I do not know if the Minister has been given a copy of the letter from the Comptroller and Auditor General, but we will certainly make one available to him.
I accept that.
The consequences of this letter are very serious. The second part of the Comptroller and Auditor General's letter states: "In this connection I would examine the status of the special account and whether the liability has matured for payment in accordance with section 24 of the Exchequer and Audit Departments Act, 1866." Quite clearly, as has been previously stated, this has implications for the Minister's and the Department's handling of this issue. The matter was dealt with in this way to resolve a difficult political issue and is not a good accounting practice. The Minister should remember that the greatest problem is when political objectives as opposed to the rightness of the situation are the driving force. The Minister faces a serious situation and the House will support him if he stands back from it.
I will try to be as succinct as possible but I hope my brevity is not taken for evasion. I have no interest for as long as I am a Member of this assembly in any way to participate in dishonest books. Let me say clearly to anybody in this House and particularly to my constituency colleague that the practices that are being currently undertaken in the Department of Finance are on the advice of departmental officials whose integrity is in no way being impugned by this debate. Every figure of taxpayers' money which is raised by Vote will be properly displayed and accounted for in the books. Deputy Michael McDowell does no service to this Republic by suggesting that the books are dishonest, misleading and presented in a favourable way. To suggest that they are dishonest demeans what we are doing in this House. I ask the Deputy to reflect on that and perhaps withdraw that remark in his own good time. We are not about dishonesty. The political management of the financial affairs of this country is our task.
Deputy Michael McDowell's second point was that the integrity and credibility of the tribunal required in some way or another that we put £60 million into it and, therefore, these people in their own right were clearly full of integrity and did not need the underwriting of £60 million to establish their bona fides.
I am not going to make any cheap shots abour lawyers. However, the bona fides of the Government in accepting its moral obligations to the victims of hepatitis C had to be demonstrated in the most tangible form possible, which was not the selection of eminent people to serve on the tribunal but the provision of substantial resources as soon as they can be accessed, which is what we did. The same Deputy would be the first to say we were offering less than what the victims could get in the courts if we put up a demeaning amount of money. We will have another day to debate this issue in full.
Deputy McCreevy stated that this year we would have the highest increase in 17 years, even higher than in 1981. I should like to quote from figures I received from officials in the Department of Finance with whom we have all worked, whom we all respect and who have served this State well. With regard to the gross non-capital supply services — I will give this information to the Deputies after the debate — the increases in constant prices since 1990 when Deputy McDowell was not a Member but his party was in Government——
Trying to keep down public spending.
He was hurling from the ditch.
He spent a great deal of time trying to get his party out of Government, if I recall correctly; perhaps these figures were one of the motivations. The real increase in constant prices from 1990-91 for non-capital gross supply services was 6.4 per cent, 6.7 per cent in 1991-92, 6.2 per cent in 1993-94, 4.9 per cent in 1994 and our calculation for 1995 is 4.3 per cent.
These are not my figures; they were not prepared by the political office of the Labour Party or by other parties in Government but are the objective figures in response to the allegations made by Deputy McCreevy.
We had a rather fractious debate some weeks ago where allegations about tax, payment and numbers were made by a particular group. I saw the basis of the calculation on which the 10 per cent more claim was made. The devil can quote more than the scriptures for his purposes — devilish accountants can quote numbers even more effectively. We have the temptation for devilish quoting in accounting procedures of figures in any way they like. Let us not get into this false debate because it has no winners.
The Minister introduced all this.
He gave it a statutory basis.
The citizens of this State do not benefit from——
Let us hear the Minister he has but a moment.
——political argument which is not based on agreed figures. Let us get agreed figures from an independent authority — I suggest the Department of Finance. I invite Deputies McCreevy and Michael McDowell to sit down with the officials of the Department of Finance and satisfy themselves in relation to these figures. On that basis, I refute categorically the charge made by Deputy McCreevy.
There is a very real political reason for this debate, why Deputy McDowell says the Taoiseach was somehow caught, that we had to change this Bill and that section 3 is an afterthought.
They did have to.
When the Bill was passed by the Government this provision was included. Advice was sought by the Department of Finance from the relevant authorities and the officials acted in accordance with established procedures. The real reason we are having this debate is that the Opposition do not have the nerve or courage to discuss the real economy because there is nothing for them to win by doing that. We have the best economy in terms of growth and performance in the European Union but the Opposition do not want to discuss that——
I asked for that debate weeks ago.
——because it is easier to have a debate on imputed illegalities and on wrong figures from Deputy McCreevy which I must refute.
If this was in the Bill two days ago the Taoiseach would have said so.
On a point of order, the Minister asked me to reflect on remarks I made and to qualify them.
That is not a point of order and we do not have time for this.
It is a personal statement.
He asked me and all I am saying——
We only have five minutes and I cannot accommodtate the Deputy or the Minister on this matter.
Question put and agreed to.