Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not want to go over any old ground if possible. In terms of the information that is required, the proposal from Government is that at the six-month point the expenditure data will be released to the Parliament, be discussed and so forth, but we have a problem with timing, in the same way as we do with other data. If the data is only released in the middle or at the end of July, it will not get to the sectoral committees early enough unless we sit through August. While that possibility is up for debate, I cannot imagine there will be a huge appetite for it. There is a problem in that regard, but if the reports are going to be provided on a monthly basis, that will deal with it. I ask the Minister to provide clarity on that point because if there is a monthly report, which would be very welcome, it would take away from the six-monthly report. Obviously we can have a wider discussion on the six-monthly report but the idea of a July information dump is problematic. While we all want information, we also know that information could be dumped on the committee without giving it enough time to scrutinise it. That is what we see with a lot of the information provided. The information in the stability programme update, for example, is excellent, and I commend the officials who put it to together. Equally, the Fiscal Advisory Council's reports are excellent in terms of the level of data and analysis contained therein. However, the problem is that we only have a set piece in which to discuss them; we need a wider opportunity. The same issue will arise with the six-monthly expenditure review. It will be an information dump and we will only scratch the surface of it. We will ask the Minister a question or two and that will be it. That is the reality. That is why I take issue with the assertion by the Minister for Finance that there is detailed scrutiny of all of this data, because there is not. Let us be realistic. I was a member of the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform and other committees. Oireachtas committees do not scrutinise proposals adequately. That is the reality. We get five or ten minutes to question officials from the Department of Finance, for example. That is not real information scrutiny. I agree with point made earlier that the best information we got on the stability programme update came from sitting down with officials from the Department and teasing out certain issues, which gave us a much better understanding of the data. I ask the Minister to verify that the month-by-month publication of data will actually occur, instead of just a set piece, six-monthly event.