asked the Taoiseach if the National Planning Board will produce a national economic plan; and, if, so, when it will be published.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - National Economic Plan.
2.
The National Planning Board have been asked to prepare a draft medium term programme for the economy within the framework of which short term economic planning would proceed but I cannot, at this stage, say when it will be completed.
In the meantime, the Government have just received interim proposals from the National Planning Board on the more immediate economic and fiscal situation, which will be taken into account in the preparation of the Estimates and budgetary policy for 1984.
I noticed the Taoiseach brought a new word into his reply. He said the board were asked to prepare a "programme". I am trying to find out specifically will the Government be publishing a national economic plan in the normal meaning of that term. Will there be a published plan and, if there is, will it be brought before the House? Perhaps the Taoiseach would like to tell me about that.
Work and preparation on that programme have begun although the immediate area to which we asked the planning board to direct their attention and to give their recommendations for the year ahead was in the context of medium-term prospects. The preparation of the programme or plan, whatever name you like to give it — and we have played around with these names for 25 years now — will take some time and the question of how it will be processed is something that the Government have not yet considered. I fail to see the advantage of a programme which is locked away in a drawer and which nobody can see. Whatever emerges will provide a basis for proposals to be put forward publicly and to be debated in this House.
This is a central question in the management of the Irish economy——
A question, please, Deputy.
Does the Taoiseach agree that there is an impression given in the Fine Gael-Labour programme for Government of December 1982, in which a new national planning board was mentioned, that the results of their activities would constitute a soundly based plan for national development? Does he agree that the normal view of a national plan is an integrated, published document which spans a set number of years? Are we going to have that type of plan or a sort of rolling programme of government?
Our immediate concern is to have set out an integrated plan or programme for something like four years ahead. The question of whether that plan will be rolled over or brought to completion and replaced by another one is a matter for further consideration. Indeed, the views of Deputies on that matter will be of interest in due course.
Does the Taoiseach envisage a plan for a specific number of years?
Yes.
When will that be ready?
I cannot make a statement on that. The planning board have begun consideration of it but we asked them to direct their attention in the first instance to recommendations as to what we have to do in 1984 in the context of their preliminary expectations for the years ahead. The work of preparing a plan for the years ahead will now begin but I cannot give a date for its completion because the board have not gone far enough down the road for that to be possible.
Will the Dáil be discussing that plan?
When the plan or programme is produced, it would be unreasonable for the Dáil not to discuss it although that practice did occur in 1960 when plans were produced but not debated in the Dáil. It is one of the things to which the Dáil should give major attention.
It is unreasonable to be trying to discuss the plan before it is published.
The Taoiseach said that the planning board have made interim proposals which the Government are considering in the context of next year's budget. Would the Taoiseach not agree that in the context of Dáil reform it would be a good idea if the proposals of the planning board were published and could be debated in the Dáil to assist the Government in the preparation of next year's budget?
These proposals have only just been received and have not been given consideration by the Government, except in the most general way, so the question is somewhat premature. As I have said, the proposals relate to the economic and fiscal situation, the Estimates and budgetary policy for 1984, and obviously proposals for 1984 will have to be considered by the Government and decisions taken on them before there is any question of publication, because they raise issues of a kind to which publicity is not given in advance of decisions being taken.