Noel Harrington (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses. While address of the equality issue is necessary, as I have mentioned previously, equality legislation does not always work. We have seen this in the context of equal treatment under the law of women drivers and young male drivers. While some people might argue that that is how it should be, whether it is fair must also be considered. Often, a conflict arises between equality and fairness. I am not suggesting this is the case all the time. It may only happen in a minute number of cases but it does happen.

It could be argued that transparency in budget decisions may be more important than the particular theme of having to prepare an equality statement in advance of the adoption of a draft budget. As stated by Deputy Kitt, it could equally be argued that issues such as how policies affect climate change, welfare reform, fairness, equality, cohesion, solidarity, inclusion and so on should be brought into the mix in the context of, say, a draft budgetary proposal to be discussed by a parliamentary committee. Would the witnesses be concerned that if this were the case the equality agenda would be lost, conflicted or sidelined?

It could be argued by a person who is concerned about climate change, justice, value for money and so on that these are cross-cutting issues that need also to be addressed and that in the context of the overarching transparency principle we should not only be considering one pillar of the budgetary process.