Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and thank him for his initial contribution. I have a few questions. To return to the issue of Garda pay, I am glad that an agreement was reached. It would have been incredibly unfortunate for the country if there had been a Garda strike, so it is welcome that an agreement was reached. However, in the material I saw about the agreement and how the €50 million is to be funded, I recall that €25 million is to come from within the resources of the Department of Justice and Equality. That struck me as being a fairy tale. I would be grateful if the Minister would analyse this. His Department is providing a certain level of support, understandably, out of buoyancy. In these statements, there is a great deal of revenue buoyancy, which has covered many of the difficulties that the Minister undoubtedly faced. However, in the context of any type of ordinary counting, will he please explain where €5 million, €10 million, €15 million, €20 million or €25 million will be found for Garda pay from the resources of the Department of Justice and Equality? To be honest, I do not believe what has been stated. It is a fairy tale. To return to the comments made about this committee, the Minister has a difficult job to do. We have a difficult job as well but we will help each other if we can be on the level about some of the figures. The Minister is not a magician, but he would need to be one to conjure up an extra €25 million from the Department of Justice and Equality. I would love to know the justice resources that would give up €25 million.

That brings me to the general principle of the expenditure reviews. The history of expenditure reviews worldwide is fraught with difficulty. There are the big beasts of public spending, which are social welfare, health, education and public service pay. They account for a vast amount of the total public spend, and a huge proportion of that is money well spent. I am anxious to know what the Minister means by efficiency and efficiency savings. Obviously, there are certain areas where progress can be made. One could try to cut down on fraud and clamp down on the black economy, which I believe is rampant again. These are areas in respect of which savings definitely can be made. The Minister's Department rides shotgun on the spending of all other Departments. It has six years experience of doing this, so the Minister should by now be able to share with the committee, via his officials, where the likely efficiencies will be found. There is one potential efficiency which I believe should be considered very carefully in the context of the type of economy we have. I refer to outsourcing. There are people in the Minister's Department who are very fond of the idea of outsourcing. We have a Government that is dedicated to rural Ireland, as opposed to Dublin. It is really quite hostile to Dublin.