Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The explanatory memorandum states: "Section 6 provides that the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform will have responsibility for the management of gross voted expenditure and the annual estimates process". The gross voted expenditure for this year, according to Government Estimates, is €57 billion. The net Estimate for the Government for this year is €46 billion and the difference is €11 billion, which is income that has been received. The Minister is in an invidious position. He will be theoretically responsible for €57 billion, but we have seen how the Department has already put caveats on his powers in most areas. Of that €57 billion, a total of €11 billion is income that will be generated through appropriations-in-aid, payments to central funds and so on. The legislation on this is very clear. The Minister, Deputy Howlin, will have no authority or even ability to open his mouth about raising funds and raising charges. He will be responsible for total expenditure in the Department, but will have no authority over the funds raised for the Department. For example, the Minister will be responsible for managing the Estimate for the Department of Education and Skills, but he will have no role under this Bill to set the allocation of ESF funding, determining third level fees, or the cost of school transport. That will be a job for the line Minister. He will also be responsible for the health Estimate but will have no right or authority to set accident and emergency fees, hospital and prescription charges. That income will come into the Department and will be part of the gross expenditure for which he will be responsible, but he will have no authority in setting it. How can somebody be in charge of something when he has no legal right to be involved in raising €11 billion of it?

The Bill also makes clear that the Minister, Deputy Howlin, has no right on deciding between capital and current expenditure. That job will be retained by the Minister for Finance. When he is examining his allocation to the various local authorities, the Minister, Deputy Howlin, will have no hand, act or part in setting the new household charge. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government will want to do that. He will want to set the new water rates as well as refuse charges and the second home tax because the main Department for these charges is the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. Deputy Howlin will have no say over these charges, even in respect of council rents, yet he is responsible under this Bill for the management of total expenditure.

This is a major inconsistency. It was dreamt up to put a Government together. It was not in the Fine Gael manifesto and it was not mentioned during the discussions until a row broke out on who would be Minister for Finance. The leaders of the coalition parties obviously decided that both sides should be kept happy, but now we have a situation where the two party leaders, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for public expenditure and reform will be assuming responsibility for all key decisions. When they get to Cabinet, decisions will have been agreed by the party leaders and the senior finance people in both parties. This will dilute the real contribution of the Cabinet to those particular discussions as things will be decided outside the Cabinet by these four people. This also reduces the power of the Minister for Finance. I have never seen something formalised to such an extent that the two party leaders are involved in a committee of four that is chaired by the Tánaiste. We are weakening the role of the Department of Finance. We are setting up a new Department with very limited powers and this must be taken into consideration during debate on the Bill.

The Minister will also assume responsibility for the non-statutory functions of the Department of Finance and the Department of the Taoiseach, so we are giving him legal power for something that does not need legal power in the first place. They are non-statutory powers and now we are creating a new restriction on something that is working at the moment. We are providing him with statutory powers for something that does not require such powers. It is a kind of made up Department to keep the Labour Party happy. People are happy to be in the Government and have chauffeur driven State cars for colleagues in the Minister of State's constituency-----

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