Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. This is a comment more for Mr. Breslin than the Minister. The Parliamentary Budget Office did some excellent work to prepare the committee to look at the Estimates. One of its main findings is that it is impossible to conduct decent scrutiny because the numbers are not comparable. It states that there are a number of challenges in undertaking effective scrutiny of this money. It is a €17 billion pot. I have looked at what the Parliamentary Budget Office said and I agree with it. It said that we are meant to be able to compare the figures from today to the figures from December but that it is essentially impossible to do so because the headings are not like for like. It talks about €400 million on pensions being pulled out of many areas and dropped into others, as well as other issues. I am aware this is not a small amount of work but I ask the Department to read the Parliamentary Budget Office's report and to then come back to report to the committee, taking these issues on board, in order that we can properly scrutinise the Estimates, since that is what we are here for today.