Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach is very welcome to the committee this afternoon. I am pleased that he took time to be here personally. That is much appreciated. It is not all about the Dáil Chamber. It is good to see the Taoiseach taking the time to come to a committee meeting even if it is directly related to his Department.

I wish to make a few observations that arose during the course of the Taoiseach’s address. I do not have a prepared script. I have a series of questions to which the Taoiseach can respond in the allocated time. He said the Estimate is based on the Croke Park II Labour Relations Commission, LRC, figures that have been rejected by public servants and he is looking at other arrangements through the LRC to see if a revised approach can be taken. I do not refer to the global figures. The Taoiseach seems determined that the savings will come from public pay but there will definitely be a change to some extent in the breakdown between Departments of the savings under the Croke Park agreement. As the Estimate before us is based on something that is not expected to happen, given that the agreement has been rejected, will it be necessary for him to come back with a Revised Estimate or a Supplementary Estimate as a result of the changes? I am sure the Government is keen to seek an alternative method to achieve savings. Could the Taoiseach elaborate on the issue?

One of the biggest issues on the agenda of the Taoiseach’s Department is the referendum on the abolition of the Seanad. I do not know what the outcome will be. Many say the Seanad should be reformed and that the method of election to it should be changed. Others, including the Taoiseach, have the view that the Seanad should be abolished. We will not fight the campaign on the issue today; we will leave it for another day. I am concerned about a trend that has emerged since the Taoiseach came to office on the holding of referendums. Previously, the majority of the funding available for a referendum campaign was given to the Referendum Commission. In previous referendums a budget of, for example, €2 million or €4 million was provided and the Referendum Commission handled all the publicity and information for the campaign. However, the Taoiseach changed the system. A budget of approximately €4 million was provided for the stability treaty referendum last year, of which €2 million was allocated to the Taoiseach’s Department and another €2 million to the Referendum Commission. For the first time ever the Government did not trust the independent Referendum Commission and, through the Taoiseach’s Department and Government Information Services, set up a website to promote a view of the referendum. The treaty was printed and other expenditure was incurred by the Department on web design, graphic design, IT work, media buying, advertising, advertorial, translation, Braille costs and other miscellaneous costs and contingencies. Where is the independence in what was done in that regard? A total of €1.5 million was spent by the Department.

The Referendum Commission had to deal with matters such as legal and advertising costs, including the cost of the press campaign. Would it not be better to give the entire budget to the independent Referendum Commission? I fail to understand the reason a Government which has a particular point of view should use taxpayers' money to promote a website through a Government office as opposed to an independent office. That situation was repeated with regard to the children's referendum. That did not involve the Taoiseach's Department, but the same principle on spending that he established for last year's stability treaty referendum applied. He mentioned a figure for €2 million in the 2013 Estimates for the Seanad referendum. Is that further spending by the Taoiseach's Department or the Referendum Commission? He might explain that to the committee. When it came to the children's referendum last year, the Taoiseach did the same again. The line Department had its own budget to put its point of view, which is taxpayers' money.

It is not the Government's Constitution; it is the people's Constitution. All the funding for the referendum should be channelled through a referendum commission and not through any line Department, be it the Taoiseach's Department, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs or any other Department. It is a new development in the past two referenda. I ask the Taoiseach to reconsider that because it added to the controversy. Last year, the Taoiseach put information about the stability treaty on his Department's website and as the referendum had not yet been called, he probably felt he was not obliged to meet obligations of fairness and impartiality. That is not helpful to the case. I will not get into the merits of the abolition or otherwise of the Seanad. I am talking about the Estimate, the spending and how the Taoiseach goes about moving that.

The next issue with which I want to deal is the Constitutional Convention. The Taoiseach might indicate to the committee his timetable for various decisions that will be made by that body that has met three times this year. Will he accept and implement all its recommendations or is it just a talking shop and the Government will pick and choose the ones on which it will move?

On that convention, the Minister, Deputy Shatter, mentioned another referendum on the courts issue. Why do we have this convention if the real business of amendments to the Constitution are being done separately? The Taoiseach is giving it the smaller piece of work to do.

The document states that one of the objectives of the Taoiseach's Department and the Government is to exit the EU-IMF programme, which we entered in 2010 and is to be completed by December 2013. Is the Taoiseach aware of any reason Ireland should not exit the EU-IMF programme in line with the original agreement in 2010 that it would be a three-year programme, given that all the quarterly reports from the troika have been favourable in terms of targets?

The Taoiseach might discuss in detail one Cabinet sub-committee. He mentioned many of them but how often does the health committee meet and what work is it doing? Health is an issue that affects every family. I do not want to get into the politics of the Department of Health but it is the one issue on which there has been a lack of progress in terms of waiting lists, general practitioner cover and so on.

I have two broad questions on the legal offices under the Taoiseach's Department, namely, the Office of the Attorney General, the Chief State Solicitor's office, and the Director of Public Prosecutions. What is the working relationship of those offices with the State Claims Agency, which handles many of the claims against the State, in terms of trying to reduce costs? Which office has the main working relationship with the State Claims Agency, which comes under the National Treasury Management Agency? I presume there must be a good deal of communication. The point I make continually on this issue is that if the State was to admit liability early in many High Court cases rather than five or six years after the event, it would be less traumatic for the people involved and far more cost-effective from the point of view of the State. People get entrenched as the years pass if there has not been an apology or an acknowledgement of what went on in a hospital or whatever.

I put another suggestion to the Taoiseach for him to consider for the future. He cannot do it now as it would require a major change. It concerns the cost of State representation in court cases. In the past year, the Minister, Deputy Howlin, spoke about reducing public sector allowances, on which there has been a good deal of debate. The Committee of Public Accounts examined that issue and an allowance we found to be excellent value was the small allowance of approximately €5,000 to Garda inspectors who handle the prosecutions in all the District Courts throughout the country. That was outstanding value for money in that for a small extra allowance, the respective inspectors in the different areas were able to handle all the District Court cases.

In a minority of cases the accused would have senior counsel representing them but I put it to the Taoiseach that somewhere within the State employment, perhaps not the Garda but through employees of the Chief State Solicitor's office, rather than always hiring senior counsel to handle these cases in the Circuit Court, many of the prosecutions on behalf of the State could be done by State employees on a salary rather than paying barristers an hourly rate. I am not talking about the Central Criminal Court, the High Court or the Supreme Court where the best legal brains in the country are needed, but the current system is working effectively under the radar at District Court level at a very effective cost to the taxpayer. Could that be examined? It could not be done by the Garda inspectors. It would have to be somebody with legal training, but people in some of the State offices could do the prosecutions in the Circuit Court on a salary basis rather than an hourly rate basis.

Regarding the President's Establishment, this may sound like a minor issue but it is a topic in everybody's mind. How much has the Taoiseach provided in the Estimate for the local property tax for Áras an Uachtaráin to be paid this year? I am sure the first citizen would want to give a good example by ensuring it is paid on time. The Taoiseach might indicate how much is estimated for that.