I have listened to your administration of rules, Sir, for which you are not responsible and did not draw up, in relation to an estimates speech and I wish to comply with them as far as possible.
This is a Supplementary Estimate in addition to the primary Estimate brought in at the beginning of the year. The Minister of State is asking the House to vote extra money without reference in any way to how it will be raised in order to meet additional costs that have arisen in the time since the original estimate was drawn up and this supplementary one was brought in. The Minister has given no justification as to why the extra money should be paid for by the House in advance of us seeing in what way the money will be raised.
The Minister, in his speech, described the details of the £6 million that he requires but did not say how it was that they got it wrong at the beginning of the year or what occurred that necessitated this amount. When the Government party published their manifesto in 1977 we argued that it was a political lie to promise so much for so little. When this comprehensive budget was introduced last year, my colleague, Deputy O'Leary, Labour party spokesperson for Finance, said that an autumn budget would be necessary because the estimates were a financial lie relative to what it was proposed to raise and spend. The truth of that charge, I make it quite seriously, is that the budget from the new, exiting Minister for Finance and his Minister of State was a financial lie last February and this is the proof of it. To seriously suggest that expenditure for OPW could be met for the year 1980 by a net increase of 3 per cent would not have fooled the porter in the Minister's office let alone a junior executive officer.
The original estimate proposed to increase the sum from £44 million to £45 million. We now have the real estimate for which no tax has been levied. It is, if my figures are right, approximately 13.9 per cent of an increase less the rate of inflation. No matter what way one juggles the figures there is a net reduction in terms of output of the services of the Department this year. There is no way the Minister can explain to the House — although God knows this Government would defy Einstein with their ability to juggle figures — and say that inflation is less than 13.9 per cent. The net effect of this Supplementary Estimate, the real budget, is to increase the overall budget by 13.9 per cent.
It would be reasonable and acceptable to the House if the Minister of State could say that in the intervening period when this budget was first cast a number of extraordinary price increases took place which he, as Minister for State responsible for his Department in casting this budget could not possibly anticipate and it is because of that that he is now looking for supplementary moneys. If one analyses the £6 million which the Minister is looking for, there are two items in it which amount to a 9.2 per cent increase on last year. They are capital items. The first is Subhead E. — New Works Alterations and Additions — and the second is Subhead G.2. If one adds those two together and expresses them as a percentage of last year's budget, they represent an increase of 9.2 per cent. Is the Minister seriously telling the House that some time between now and February the Office of Public Works, which are not renowned for the alacrity with which they move, will move so fast and so quickly that two major capital programmes are discovered which cost basically £4 million?
We know from the workings of the Office of Public Works and their dependence on information from other Government Departments, local authorities and from the general difficulties — I recognise that there are difficulties attached to a large, traditional organisation trying to move through various Departments — that there is no way that any Department, particularly the Office of Public Works, could move that quickly. It is not sufficient for a Minister of State, seeking to raise an additional £6 million without reference as to how it is going to be provided or how it is going to be obtained in terms of taxation, to simply, in a two-page script describe in detail how the £6 million is made up. A responsible Minister of State, who is in charge of his Department and who understands what is going on, would give reasons as to why the extra money was required. We have got no such reasons. If the Minister is to make any recognition of his democratic responsibilities to this institution, which was not brought about easily by our forefathers, he has a democratic obligation to justify why the £6 million is necessary.
I am concentrating on the extra capital items which emerged between last January and now. I am discounting all the other items in the other heads, which can be attributed to increased costs, wages and things which, by and large, the Minister could not reasonably anticipate and over which he has no control. A more prudent and honest Minister would have admitted that inflation could not be only 3 per cent in 1980 and should have anticipated that costs in the Office of Public Works would go up by 10 to 13 per cent. Even taking a Deputy Martin O'Donoghue view, even if they had taken the manifesto view and assumed what the rate of inflation would be as prophesied it would have been higher than the 3 per cent that was estimated for the coming year. It is for that reason I say the Minister is attempting to put to the House a financial lie, which is what this supplementary budget is.
Democracy here is not all that healthy. The public attitude of many of our young people to activities in which we are involved is not so positive that we can encourage and tolerate this kind of duplicity. How can one make a prophesy about the economy in 1977 that inflation is going to be down to 7 per cent in the current year and, at the same time, introduce an estimate at the beginning of the year which shows a net increase of a certain amount and suddenly discover, in the middle of it, that there are two major capital programmes which, if one were to finance and anticipate them, would amount to an increase in the region of 9.2 per cent. That is a serious charge which I am making on the basis of the information which has been provided to the House by the Minister. I should like to be proved wrong. One does not make such a serious charge lightly.
It is for the Minister to detail why, in subhead G.2 and certainly why in subhead E, new works came about so quickly. There is no evidence to suggest that the Board of Works in the past responded or moved quickly. If it has responded and moved that quickly, and if that money has been spent, I would like to know if the normal procedures in relation to tendering, scrutiny and open competition that must govern the administration of public moneys, have been properly adhered to. If the Office of Public Works have managed to spend that money so quickly, to such an extent that the Government are surprised, then they have moved much faster than normally. The House should know if it has been done properly and in full accordance with the procedures relating to public tendering.
I do not wish to make any political comment. As far as I am concerned, the Minister of State has one political task to do, to hold on to two seats in North Kerry. Regrettably, he has not responded to the kind of things that Deputy Donnellan was asking. He is introducing a supplementary budget in the House which, I repeat, is a financial lie, because we forecast back in February that it would not meet the costs required, that the taxation proposed by the Minister for Finance to cover the cost would not be adequate and this is the living proof. If this House were to take half a dozen Supplementary Estimates that we are having now and put them into a supplementary budget, there would be a howl of protest at the idea that the Minister for Finance, who is responsible for the whole nonsense, is being promoted to Brussels in gratitude for activities last year.