Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 29 January 2013
395. Deputy Michael McGrath asked the Minister for Social Protection if he will detail the policies being implemented by his Department on which he wrote to the EU / ECB / IMF troika; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3888/13]
View answerAs the Deputy will be aware Ireland is in the final year of the EU-IMF Programme of Financial Support. The Programme is subject to a quarterly review mission with the three external partners, the EU, the ECB and the IMF (the Troika). It is at these review missions that discussions take place with regard to programme commitments which translate into the Programme documents which are updated and agreed after every mission. The review missions, the ninth of which begins today, involve a large number of technical meetings which are attended by officials from the Department of Finance, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and when appropriate from other Departments (including the Department of Social Protection), the Central Bank and the NTMA.
Following each review mission the external partners and the Irish authorities agree updated programme documents, specifically the Memorandum of Understanding on Specific Economic Policy Conditionality, the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies and the Technical Memorandum of Understanding. The programme documents outline the policies discussed with our external partners and detail the commitments which we have agreed to. Once the documents are finalised, the Letters of Intent are signed jointly by the Minister for Finance and the Governor of the Central Bank and are issued to the EU and the IMF, along with the accompanying programme documents. The Programme documents then go through an EU and IMF approval procedure and once approved these documents are laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas and placed on the Department of Finance website following their transmission.
There are also continuing contacts at official level, relating to technical and implementation issues. I have not written to the Troika in relation to any specific policy which is being implemented in order to meet the expenditure ceilings for my Department.
