Mr. Richard Keane:

We probably need a bit more joined-up thinking. If people can discuss economic inequality at Davos and if Paul Krugman can write about it in the Tuesday edition of The Irish Times, then surely members, as parliamentarians, could be given additional information in order that they might base the decisions they make on the budgetary process. The World Bank rated Ireland 35th out of the 43 countries it assessed for financial scrutiny of legislation. Dáil Éireann does not have a parliamentary budgetary office. Twelve OECD countries now have such offices. Impact analysis is not provided with draft budgets or the legislation that accompanies them, such as the finance Bill, the local property tax Bill and the social welfare Bill. Guillotines are regularly imposed in respect of critical budgetary legislation. Amendments from Members of Dáil Éireann are almost never accepted during the legislative process. Parliamentary oversight of Cabinet proposals seems to be minimal.
There is a way of opening this process out in order that we will not be presented with budgets that appear to involve power plays between Departments. Those who are affected most by budgets do not have access to well-oiled lobbying machines. The various surveys that have been carried out indicate that those at the margins of society and in the lowest decile have been affected most by recent budgets. We would like a more open and transparent process in respect of the budgetary cycle. There are specialists who can be consulted. I refer, for example, to the department of equality studies and the school of social justice in UCD and the Equality Trust in the United Kingdom. The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, by Wilkinson and Pickett, which was published two or three years ago, has been quite influential. We propose that the ESRI and the Equality Authority might be best placed to conduct an equality analysis in this country as part of the annual budgetary cycle.