Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am well aware of Deputy Fleming's view on the matter and he has articulated it comprehensively and well on Second Stage. He understands the position I will present as well.

Following the establishment of my Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in 2011, I was given responsibility to oversee public sector policy and the management of overall departmental expenditure. That is the remit of my Department. With regard to this Bill, there are responsibilities that I now hold which were previously vested in an integrated Department of Finance, including the management of the annual Estimates and general sanctioning powers relating to public expenditure. The Minister for Finance, under the Ministers and Secretaries Bill enacted in 2011, retained responsibility for non-voted expenditure that Deputy Fleming now instances. They are not my responsibility but rather that of the Minister for Finance, who also controls broader fiscal policies.

Non-voted expenditure represents expenditure - as correctly noted by the Deputy - which is voted by the Oireachtas under specific statute law to be paid from the Central Fund without annual reference in the Estimates. These items are a permanent charge on the State, representing services payable out of the Central Fund by the continuing authority of law. They are not, therefore, part of the normal Estimates process, either in negotiation with line Departments or in anything else.

Central Fund activity is regulated and reported through the monthly Exchequer statement. Additionally, the Department of Finance publishes detailed annual accounts of the Central Fund for the previous year, known as the finance accounts, and these are prepared under section 4 of the Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Act 1993. They contain detailed analysis and classifications of receipts, issues of the Central Fund and details of the national debt, which as the Deputy correctly noted is the largest component of non-voted expenditure. These reports must be laid before Dáil Éireann not later than 30 September each year. In addition, planned Central Fund expenditure is set out for the following year as part of the stability programme update and as part of the budget documentation.

The Bill before us does not deal with debt servicing or any other charges coming from the Central Fund and I do not propose to change the Bill to encompass those. I do not intend to change the long-standing practice on non-voted expenditure. Such practices are in accordance with the Constitution, and as I noted earlier, the expenditure does not come within my purview as it is under the direct control of the Minister for Finance.

I will deal specifically with some of the points made by Deputy Fleming. The largest item of non-voted expenditure is the servicing of the national debt, and any initiative to move debt repayment away from the current Central Fund payment scheme and into an annual debated Vote would have implications for the NTMA in raising money to fund the debt. Currently, offering circulars issued by the NTMA contain the following term: "The principal and interest of the bond which is issued under the National Treasury Management Agency Act 1990 and other statutes will be charged on the Central Fund". When we borrow money we give a commitment that we will pay on the agreed terms in an unconditional and irrevocable way, and that is why we get money at affordable rates. I hope that will happen in future. I am advised by the people who raise the money that any move away from such a process or conditionality would have implications for us.

The second-largest item of expenditure under the Central Fund is the EU budget, which arises because of a treaty obligation, voted on by the people of Ireland by way of referenda. It is not that we can debate an Estimate before amending or rejecting it. We have signed up solemnly to those treaty obligations.

For all those reasons, it is not my view that we should introduce the new discipline I am talking about here on a multi-annual Estimates basis. It is an innovative, new and reforming measure, but I do not think it can extend to the Central Fund. It is not my area of responsibility and, in addition, I do not think it would be appropriate for the reasons I have given.