Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I was just looking around and thinking that I am probably the only member of the Sub-committee on Dáil Reform who is also on this committee. It is interesting that the Chairman says that one of our tasks is to report back to that committee. That committee has worked very well and we should try to adopt the same sort of collaborative arrangements that have taken place in that committee.

The second point relates to the Taoiseach. I asked him on the Order of Business yesterday how he saw this committee working. I made the point, with which I think he agreed, that we could learn by doing. If our task set by the Sub-committee on Dáil Reform is to work out how this budget scrutiny process works, I do not think it is an academic exercise where we step out of the 2017 budget process. We need to step right in and really step up a gear because June is a critical month. Rather than us just having some academic discussion on how we might do it in the 2018 budget, we need to get involved in what needs to be done in June anyway and learn by doing. That experience will help us issue some sort of report in terms of future lessons or the approach we have taken before.

The Taoiseach was very clear yesterday in saying that he also thought we should be engaging with the sectoral committees and that they too should be engaged this June in the 2017 budget process in a real way, not just in an academic way and that they should liaise with us in doing our work. We are a short-term interim committee before the Seanad and other committes are put in place. It is an opportunity for us to get involved in the nitty-gritty of looking at what is happening in June and where the Estimates process is now. Through that process of work and through working with the sectoral committees we will have a better idea of how budget scrutiny could work. We should now immediately get into the work rather than just with a view to what we might do next year.