Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In its proposal, the Government again states that it will be published earlier, which is the start of April. That does not allow sufficient time for consideration by the new budgetary committee to allow it to examine and report on those issues and to have an input into the draft stability programme update. The OECD recommended that it be published a couple of months prior to the Department's publication date. Will the Minister outline the reason he cannot publish it before the start of April? If the budgetary committee requested that the stability programme update, SPU, be brought forward by a month, that would happen. I note some of the arguments are that the March figures are coming in at that time. How long is a piece of string? If a person has to report in February, he or she uses the latest information that is available. The longer it is left, the more information that will be available and the clearer the picture will become, but the real issue is whether, with the information available, it will allow for the SPU to be published some time in March.