Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I have three quick points on the terms of reference or the scope.

I note on the agenda that whereas point b) is "Scrutiny of expenditure proposals and associated performance", a) is just "Scrutiny of revenue raising proposals". It may just be a question of semantics or maybe there is an assumption that all revenue gets raised and does not require associated performance, although recent water-related revenue raising might bring that into question. It is probably just semantics, but it is important that the performance of revenue-raising proposals is included.

I also have a question for the Chairman or for the clerk. In the last Dáil term we struggled with the fact that there was no single place where total spending was debated. If the entire envelope was €60 billion, there was no discussion anywhere within the Oireachtas - there was in the Executive, obviously, with the Minister - of whether health should take up €13 billion of the €60 billion, etc. I am not certain whether that falls within the scope-----