Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome what has been said about a longer lead-in time to the budgetary process. The lead-in time for Finance Bills has become short and the guillotine has been used. We do not get a chance to tease out matters. Given the changes to the committee system, more work may be done at committee level. There has been a small improvement in that regard.

In terms of inequalities, there could be a crude system preventing people's salaries from being changed overnight, but changes could still be made through the tax system, levies and so on. For example, the maximum and minimum rates of social protection can be changed. How would legislation change this situation? I am in favour of legislating. I have studied how it did not make one blind bit of difference when some countries inserted such clauses in their constitutions. Some countries can point to climate change or fresh air for everyone being covered by their constitutions, but they do nothing to provide a clean air environment. Do the witnesses agree that legislation rather than a referendum would be a more practical way of dealing with inequalities?

The Constitutional Convention has made good recommendations and we will probably hold various referendums on them.

In the short term, legislation dealing with taxation on high incomes and ensuring social welfare rates do not fall below a certain figure, while not erasing inequality, would go a long way towards addressing the issue. Perhaps the witnesses would comment.