Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 4 June 2014
4. Deputy Sean Fleming asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the steps he is taking to ensure all expenditure measures announced in budget 2014 are implemented throughout Departments; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23711/14]
Amharc ar fhreagraLast October, during his budget day speech, the Minister announced savings of €113 million through medical card probity analysis which led to the onslaught we have had against the elderly and sick people who have lost their medical cards despite every member of the Government, including the Taoiseach, stating there was no change in Government policy. On the same day, the Minister announced measures to discontinue the telephone allowance for elderly people. He also announced measures to discontinue mortgage interest supplement and to cut illness benefit. Is he still determined to ensure all of these public service cuts will continue to happen during this year?
The Government decided on departmental allocations for 2014 in the budget which I announced on 15 October 2013. The full details of these allocations were set out in the Revised Estimates for public services published on 18 December 2013 and approved by the Dáil on Thursday, 30 January 2014. Ministers and their Departments are responsible for ensuring that their Vote-level allocations are adhered to while at the same time managing the delivery of services. All Departments are required to report to my Department on a monthly basis on their actual current and capital expenditure compared with their published expenditure profiles and to explain where variations arise. My Department is in regular contact with Departments and offices to ensure that expenditure is being controlled, and where necessary my Department meets regularly with line Departments to review financial management in order to minimise any risk of expenditure overruns. The Deputy is very critical if there are overruns every time I answer questions here.
The Comprehensive Expenditure Report 2012-2014 introduced a new model of multi-annual budgeting for current expenditure, as the Deputy is aware, called a medium-term expenditure framework, MTEF. The MTEF was initiated on an administrative basis and following enactment of the Ministers and Secretaries Amendment Act 2013, the arrangements for fixed spending ceilings for each ministerial Vote group for a rolling three year period have a statutory basis. The details of the operation of the ministerial expenditure ceilings are set out in an administrative circular issued by my Department last Autumn.
As the Deputy is aware, we have been going through very challenging economic and fiscal conditions which have necessitated significant adjustments to voted expenditure. The efforts made by Ministers and Departments to ensure adherence to allocations, along with the regular monitoring by my Department and regular reporting to Government, have ensured that the required fiscal targets have been consistently met each year since the Government was elected.
I will go back to the statement made by the Minister last October to be implemented this year, in particular the savage cuts he and his party colleague, the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, inflicted on people this year. Why is the Labour Party in government when the Minister and Deputy Burton-----
The Minister, Deputy Burton.
The Minister, and the Minister, Deputy Joan Burton, have announced the discontinuance of the telephone allowance for elderly people. They also approved cuts to maternity and adoptive benefits, as announced by the Minister, Deputy Howlin, and implemented by the Minister, Deputy Burton, who obviously agreed to it before the announcement. The Ministers also cut illness benefit and jobseeker's allowance for young people, and the Minister, Deputy Burton, single-handedly ensured the discontinuance of mortgage interest supplement for new applicants in mortgage difficulty. In addition to this, and it appears without the agreement of the Minister for Health, the Minister announced a reduction of €113 million in the medical card budget which has led to a series of U-turns. I cannot begin to list how many U-turns have been done on this issue in recent weeks.
The Deputy had better make up his mind. One day he accuses us of following the Fianna Fáil programme to the letter and states we should not get any credit for it because it is all Fianna Fáil's doing while the next he is saying it is a programme Fianna Fáil wants to completely disown and it has nothing to do with it. In truth, it is neither. We renegotiated the programme with the troika. We are on a trajectory to get our deficit below 3%. We will still borrow €8 billion this year to pay for our services and this is a huge burden because we are piling up further debt. We want to minimise this by having a balanced budget as quickly as we can, consistent with making rational decisions.
It is as though one could make the level of budgetary adjustments the people have been obliged to endure and have endured without affecting any social welfare, health or education services. As the Deputy knows full well, the four Departments of Health, Social Protection, Education and Skills and Justice and Equality between them account for 87% of all current expenditure and it would be impossible to make those adjustments.
Thank you. I will come back to the Minister.
The Deputy cannot will the ends and deny the Government the means.
While I certainly will the ends, which are to balance the books, I deny the means by which the Government has gone about it in each of its three budgets. The ESRI and everybody have stated they were the most unfair budgets Ireland has had in recent years-----
It said no such thing.
-----in that the cuts have been directed at those on the lowest levels of income and additional sources of revenue have not been targeted at those earning more than €100,000. It begs the question as to the reason the Minister has been in government supporting Fine Gael policy all along. I refer to something I cannot understand. The Minister announced cuts of €113 million in respect of medical cards in his budget here, which has led to the fiasco all Members have experienced and about which the Minister has learned at first hand. However, Members had spoken in this Chamber on this issue every single week for the past six months, but when the Government went knocking on the doors, the people told it the same thing. The Taoiseach announced the setting up of a committee and was going to deal with it. There is a new committee, he carried out a U-turn, he was going to give back the cards but then was not going to give them back and does not know whether he can do so or whether people must reapply. It is an absolute shambles and it all goes back to the Minister's announcement that €113 million was to be cut out of the medical card budget.
While the Deputy would like to rewrite history, had the Government implemented the programme that Fianna Fáil agreed with the troika, as part of the previous Administration, the Deputy personally would be spending €1.5 billion less on social welfare this year. One can work out what that would mean for pensioners, for those dependent on social welfare provision and for the unemployed. I note that in the budgetary projects Fianna Fáil set out, it sought to crucify the unemployed. Consequently, I will take no lessons with regard to what the Government has done. The Government has done what it needed to do to balance the budget but did so in the most fair and humane way possible. It has protected basic social welfare payments. I would have liked to have admitted no cuts at all and certainly from my perspective, as I have stated in every budget speech, I take no pleasure in reducing public expenditure in areas on which I would like to spend more. However, I cannot spend money I do not have. While Members can continue to fight the election, it is over and they should now talk reality because the people want a future. They wish to know that the hard and difficult decisions they have endured will bring them a brighter future and not to have the illusion that all can be washed or wiped away in a return to phoney economics, as implemented in the dying days of the previous Administration.
