Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to attend the select committee and to help re-engineer the engagement between the Government and the Oireachtas, on fiscal policy in general and on the budget in particular. I am sure that the outcome of the committee's work will be a major improvement on the status quoresulting in better fiscal policy decisions and better outcomes for the State.

I, together with the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, forwarded a submission to the committee on behalf of the Government on 2 June which, I assume, we can take as read. The overall objective is to get to a situation where the Dáil has the right information and the time to provide costed proposals for inclusion in the expenditure and revenue plans to be presented by the Government in the budget each October. For this to work as intended, the Dáil's input will need to be supplied as early as possible in September.

There is an inherent conflict between providing the right up-to-date information and providing information early. Aside from common sense, it is also a legal requirement that budgetary planning uses the most up-to-date information. This means that there is a limited window available for the preparation of some documents, such as the stability programme update. Providing earlier drafts would mean using out-of-date forecasts. Taking account of this constraint, we are looking at ways to bring forward the publication of draft documents with the most up-to-date information to give the Dáil time to consider them and make recommendations on the amendments before their final adoption.

Key to this process will be the need for the budget oversight committee to interact with other stakeholders and expert bodies, such as the European Commission, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and the ESRI. A better informed Dáil will be able to consider and adopt ex anteinput for Government to consider in the formulation of budgetary plans. A better informed Dáil will be better placed to scrutinise a Government's budgetary plans when they are produced.

That is all I want to say by way of preliminary remarks but I am open to answering any questions.