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

There is a fundamental misunderstanding on the Deputy's side about what we are actually doing. This is not a train at the station to which we can keep adding carriages, that is, loading all economic and social policy onto it. There are several other opportunities to do that. This Bill is concerned with the corrections required by deviations from fiscal objectives. The methodology of correction is simple, in that it will either need to be done through the Estimates by reducing expenditure across certain Votes or by increasing taxes. As the Deputy well knows, the Parliament has a full debate on the Estimates and the budget and sees several votes. There is no question of the Parliament not endorsing the correction process. It must do so. These are the methods by which the deviations are corrected. Loading section 6 with a range of economic and social objectives weakens it when what the Deputy hopes to do can be achieved elsewhere in the work of the Houses.

The Deputy brings witnesses to bear on his debate. Pete St. John wrote "The Fields of Athenry", but it is not an historic ballad. It was only written in the 1970s. It is fiction. There was no such person. Regardless of whether Trevelyan's corn was stolen, no guy headed for the boat the following morning. The Deputy should not bring fictional characters forward as witnesses to social deprivation.