Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being delayed. I picked up on what Deputy Eamon Ryan said. His point is very similar to the one he made last week. I agree with Deputy Seán Barrett that our job is to facilitate the coming into being of a budgetary committee. If we focus on half a job, which is to try to get that up and running, with an intersection at some point with the budgetary cycle - which has already started for this year - we will be trying to create half a horse. We should examine the whole package. What we recommend will not only be for this year but also for the years to come and for scenarios in which there may not be a minority Government. Therefore, we must put forward proposals that will stand the test of time and allow the Parliament to have greater involvement in the delivery of a budget and the progress on formulating one. Once we have sorted out the type of framework in which we want to operate, we could make interim suggestions on how we should intersect with the budgetary cycle this year. I agree with the points made in this regard but our focus has to be on moving away from this year's budget to examining and agreeing on the framework in which we will need to operate every year from now on.

The second part of the work concerns the independent costings unit. We should then examine the interim measures we want to recommend to the Dáil, which concern how we would intersect with this year's budgetary cycle. The reality is that, whatever we propose - I am not predetermining it - we will be able to fulfil it completely for budget 2017. Recommendations will, therefore, have to be made on how best to achieve a result in the spirit of what the committee intends, whether it involves getting sectoral committees' recommendations to start working straightaway on a certain basis or otherwise.