Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I accept Deputy Donnelly's bona fides that he does not wish to make a political issue of this. However, we spent the first 20 minutes of the debate on 2% of the Vote, which is the pay changes as they impact on my Department and its agencies. I cannot present a fraudulent Vote. I must apportion where I think the money should be got across the system. I have done that in a reasonable way. If there is a change in that 2%, I will return to the committee. All I have asked is that we go through the normal way of dealing with this.

Deputy Donnelly spoke about the post facto way we do Estimates. That will change this year, as he knows. We had a very good exchange with Deputy Fleming on this on Question Time last week. Under the new two-pack arrangement, we will have the budget on 15 October and all Estimates for next year will be expected to be passed before the end of December this year. That will keep this and all the committees quite busy for the latter part of this year. It is a better system and we are moving to that. However, to date it has always been done this way. We are changing it and have been working on that change for the last two years.

With regard to our business today, I have instanced shared services that will run out of money. That is the pay for people working in the PeoplePoint centre in Clonskeagh, for example. We must be clear that we are continuing the business of providing for public services in the normal way. There is an issue to be resolved with regard to making additional savings of €300 million this year. I made no bones about the requirement for that. I repeatedly said the arithmetic has not changed and I must represent that €300 million across all Votes in some way. Bluntly, had I come to the committee and simply expunged that €300 million, there would be a different row here on a different premise. I ask members to be reasonable about this. Accept that we will deal with the normal Estimates by going through them line by line under all the Votes in the normal way. If and when there is a change in the structure of any element of the Votes, whether it is pay or anything else, we will return in the normal way to seek the approval of the committee and the Dáil for that.