Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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The purpose of this meeting is simply to consider the Estimates for my Department and its associated agencies. It is not €300 million, obviously. The pay savings are the apportioned savings we would have expected had the Croke Park II proposals impacted on my Department and the agencies under my purview. In essence, last week I was faced with a decision on whether I should publish the Estimates on the basis of apportioning, as I thought, in a fair way the €300 million of savings that are implied in the budget arithmetic or not publish the Estimates. They are everybody's Estimates. Taking Deputy Fleming's logic, we cannot advance on any Estimate in any Department until we have reached a resolution in regard to the €300 million for this year.

That would be well and good if we had no responsibility. We could approach it as the Republicans did in America and shut down government. However, agencies need to be funded and, for example, the shared service, PeoplePoint, needs a Vote this week to ensure it can continue to function. Ultimately every agency of State - all the ones under my purview - over time will need to have a formal Vote in order to continue in existence. It is extraordinarily reasonable that we would go through the full Estimate of my Department and all the agencies under my remit. If and when we have alternative proposals on the savings in pay and pensions, we will come back and have those approved separately. It is not unusual to have that done.

I understand that some of the Deputies opposite want to grandstand on the particular issue of the Croke Park II proposal, which is an important issue. During the negotiation period, the only utterance I heard from Deputy Fleming was that the €300 million was not sufficiently ambitious and that he wanted €350 million taken out of the public pay bill for this year. I reread his pre-budget submission which detailed how that would be done by the end of March. If we did not have an agreement by the end of March, he laid out, in fairness, the forced measures in regard to the public service for which he would have legislated, as his party did twice when last in government.

I am conscious that we are using up time now. As we will have a debate in plenary session in the Dáil tonight on all these matters, let us park Croke Park II until that forum. Let us now do our normal business for all the agencies that depend on us. We should go through line by line the voted moneys required to fund services within my Department and its associated agencies for this year. When alternatives are determined - if alternatives are determined - for the €300 million, I will come back to the committee seeking approval for that proportion of it that applies to my Department in a timely fashion, as is normal.