Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My question is for the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy McGrath. On 8 October, only five days before the budget, I said:

It appears from what the Minister is saying that he is still going to pull the bunny out of the hat next Tuesday, despite everything he said for the past ten years. It is not the way to do budgets. I acknowledge that there are moving parts but he has a sense of the quantum at this stage. That is usually published in the summer economic statement, which he and the Minister for Finance have decided not to publish this year.

At the time the Committee on Budgetary Oversight was trying to ascertain from the Minister the size of the budgetary package. What we were able to elicit five days before the budget was that it was €12 billion. Five days later, the Minister produced a budget of nearly €16 billion. Can the Minister explain to me why this committee should judge what the Minister did at the time as in any way a serious effort to build on oversight and scrutiny or does he believe, as I do, that the engagement was making a mockery of the committee?