Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Barrett is right that this is about setting up the structures for a new budgetary process. The consensus view is that it should be chimed with the new politics, whatever that might be, but that there would be a new way of doing budgeting that is more open, transparent and participative, both with groups inside and outside the Parliament. However, it is legitimate, in the context of discussing the establishment of those structures, to talk about issues such anti-poverty and anti-inequality budgeting because the proposals are about the structure of budgeting, not the detail of what that might mean. It should be part of the structural framework of budgeting, as is the case in other parliaments.

Following on from what Deputy Donnelly spoke about, part of our remit is to ensure that alternative proposals for budgets are examined in a serious way, notwithstanding the constitutional restrictions that exist and which we must navigate our way around. There must be a serious attempt to examine and debate alternatives as part of the process of a budget being put together and how those alternatives can be presented here, both from other non-governmental political groups and civil society groups.