Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I will speak at twice the pace. The stability programme update, SPU, has become an important document. The Minister's officials very kindly gave me a briefing on this year's SPU. The detail in some of it is incredibly important and one would not get it without quite detailed engagement with the Minister or the officials. Mid-April seems way too late to me. I accept the point on sending the update to the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, IFAC. The SPU consideration starts once the European Parliament's annual growth survey comes out in November of the previous year. I presume the officials and the Minister are working on the SPU from November. Coming to the committee with a critical and really complex document in mid-April just does not work. It is way too late. Will the Minister speak to his officials about how the SPU could be provided earlier?

Consideration of the document and understanding what is in it takes two weeks. There is a line item in this year's SPU which references the changing of bank shares from preference to ordinary or the other way around, which freed up an unexpected amount of fiscal space, and that is allowing the Vote on health this year, for example. The sum of €500 million can be provided because of that technical change. There is really important stuff in there and coming to the committee or Parliament in mid-April is just too late. We need to get the document and read it in good time. We could probably do with briefings from officials. We need time to discuss the SPU in committee and to form our opinion and then the Minister needs time to take the opinion on board and potentially to change the SPU. I do not see any way that could be done between mid-April and the end of April.