Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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It will come as no surprise to the officials that Sinn Féin and I are opposed to the measures. We have discussed them in the Chamber in respect of their impact on democratic accountability and the ability of the Oireachtas to set economic policy. In my view, it ties us into a fiscal straitjacket. It is also part of the austerity programme within the Commission. During the debate on the Fiscal Responsibility Bill, I raised the point that the Oireachtas has the final say on approving or rejecting the budget produced by the Government. There is a responsibility on the Government to have an assessment of the budget's impact and its social and economic cost to the citizens. The same obligation does not exist within the Commission. The problem is that we have the implementation of a one-size-fits-all fiscal rule across Europe, regardless of whether the jacket fits. When this committee met with members of the Bundestag and other groups as part of a trip, one of the things that struck a chord was a German parliamentarian saying that Germany is devising rules it thought it could never get away with in its wildest dreams.

They are using this crisis to try to impose restrictions and conditions on member states which in my view are not in the best interest of this State.

I take issue with the statement in the note we were given that this proposal is really about information gathering - perhaps that was a reference made by another member state. The directive repeats the word "surveillance" and when these proposals are adopted that is what it will do. It is about deeper surveillance and allowing the Commission a deeper role in our budgetary proposals and process. That is the mood music of where I am coming from, but my specific question is the same as that of the Chairman. I heard what Mr. Palmer had to say with regard to the Department's concern about the requirement that the budgetary arithmetic and the forecasting be based on independent advice. I note the point that it could be in the form of approval. Regardless of which way we go - whether it is independent advice or a case of the Department providing the forecast and the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council approving it - the reality is that we are conferring responsibility for forecasting on the fiscal council. There are two options. We may go with the requirement to base our budgetary arithmetic on independent macroeconomic forecasts. If the Department does its forecast and the council rejects those figures, that leaves the final say to the council or some other agency. What would happen in a scenario in which the Department produced a macroeconomic forecast to which the independent body would not subscribe? Would this place an obligation on the Department to base its budgetary proposals on what the independent body - that is, the fiscal council - states? That is a major shift which raises questions about how the Department will be structured. If the Department no longer has this role, what are the implications for the configuration of the Department?