Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy's comments are interesting but they are well outside the scope and scheme of the legislation and outside the treaty. His claims about social and economic assessments are subjective and I do not blame him for this. My reading of the Sinn Féin economic paper suggests to me that it risks putting another 100,000 people out of work rather than creating jobs but Deputy Doherty will claim the contrary. The point I am making illustrates the difficulty of putting a subjective economic plan into a legislative framework. As it is outside the scope of the treaty I do not think even if we could agree on the terms it could be done.

I refer the Deputy to Article 3.1(e) of the treaty, which states, "The mechanism shall include the obligation of the Contracting Party concerned to implement measures to correct the deviations over a defined period of time." This is the objective as stated in the treaty. It is not an exercise in economic planning for good or ill; it is an exercise in correcting fiscal imbalances. This is the obligation under the treaty being reflected in the legislation. What the Deputy suggests goes well beyond the scope of this and introduces a range of considerations which might make it impossible for the Government of the day to take corrective action when the deviation occurs. I will give a simple example. Last February, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform had an early retirement scheme across the public service and significant numbers of people retired and the public service was made much smaller. This runs contrary to any employment targets that Deputy Doherty would introduce because of the serious reduction in numbers. However, it reduced the payroll bill of the public service and was a measure to correct fiscal imbalances. Whatever about the rights and wrongs of Deputy Doherty's argument, in the terms of what we are doing it is not possible to include it here. This is why I will reject the amendments.

This not only a fiscal correction, but a programme designed by the European authorities and the IMF.

When we get out of the programme, it will be important that we have an economic and social development plan to carry us forward for several years. It is within this context that we can have a debate on the social and economic objectives the Deputy seeks to import by way of amendment. Although I disagree with many of the Deputy's remarks, my principal objection is that including the amendments would do violence to the section and the purpose of the Bill. There are other opportunities to develop economic and social programming in the Houses of the Oireachtas in order that it would incorporate Government policy.