John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

If I may take up that point, the Minister made mention of the Revenue Commissioners and the collection of taxes. They do a good job and do it with great care and diligence. When one looks at the Comptroller and Auditor General's report for as long as I have been a Member - the Minister is a former Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts - it does not appear as if all of the Departments and agencies of the State spend that money with the same care and diligence used to collect it. As a result, there are issues, such as Console and Project Eagle. I understand that the Comptroller and Auditor General is conducting an investigation into a number of transactions within NAMA. If the Comptroller and Auditor General's office and the Committee of Public Accounts had been empowered to act and had the requisite funding it is quite possible that we would have had greater scrutiny with a better outcome in terms of Console and others.

The Comptroller and Auditor General cannot forensically examine every account. My experience of the office has been that it is difficult for it to get down to the ultimate expenditure of taxpayers' money allocated to different agencies. Until such time as the Government brings about a change in that regard, we will still be in the same difficulty in five years' time without the necessary reform. I say this, as the Minister said, from my experience as former Chairman of the Public Accounts. The Minister, too, chaired that committee. The Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General has never been substantially reformed to do the business that the State and the citizens expect it to do.

It is similar to this process here. Earlier, each of the speakers had roughly between ten and 12 minutes to make their contribution. We are dealing with a budget here of €379 million and we have not got into the detail of it. Standing Orders do not allow us. Standing Order 90 provides that we can consider this but we cannot vote against it, nor can we vote for it. We cannot comment on it. On the issue of a comment on this, the comment is already preordained; it is already established. We cannot even change that. There is not time within what we do in the committees to deal with these issues. It becomes something of a farce and a little misleading for the public which believes that we are examining its accounts. I will use my few minutes by asking the questions, of which that is one.

Returning to the committees, I note that at least two previous Finance committees and two previous Committees of Public Accounts made reference to a single case of an individual in terms of return of tax and it has never been completely dealt with. The cross-party committees decided that an individual should be repaid the full tax amount and Revenue refused to do it. The Minister is aware of it. The Taoiseach is aware of it. The same applies to previous members of Government. Revenue just ignores the recommendations of Oireachtas committees, not just of one, that were made up of different individuals over time.

I will take the Minister up on some of the comments in his opening remarks. Unfortunately, we are out of time to deal with them. The Minister mentions, for example, domestic banking and the SME credit and personal debt. I do not know who said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics". While these statistics look good, the experience of the SME sector in dealing with the banks is nothing short of horrific. It is extremely difficult to get to grips with what the banks require and extremely difficult to get funding for the SME sector out of those banks. In fact, when there is an attempt to access the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, SBCI, fund through a bank, mainly AIB, the SBCI can decide not to give the funding but it does not necessarily explain why. In one case, in terms of the Credit Review Office, even if the SBCI supports the application, that bank can still say "No" and still not give the reasons for that negative response. That needs to be addressed.

In terms of mortgage arrears, merely to put it on record because we do not have time to deal with it in detail, I accept that there are 85,989 accounts in difficulty but the Minister should visit the eviction courts to see what happens there. It is incredible how badly those in mortgage arrears, in the main, Irish citizens and families, are being treated in those eviction courts. With the county registrar present, they attempt in their own way, because they cannot afford legal representation, to fight their cases. Often the decision of a previous court and judge is not even followed up. No one knows what is going on within those courts except the individual at the end of the day, who may get a negative response. I believe that we are now down to a situation where families in this country will be evicted from their own homes simply because the due process that they have entered into is not functioning for them and it is up to the Government to provide the appropriate legislation to keep them in their homes.

There is another point with regard to Brexit, an issue to which the Minister has referred and on which members have raised questions. I am a supporter of Europe and our future is in Europe, but if we lose this opportunity to question Europe and where it is going then the SME sector and businesses across the board will not be able to deal with the amount of legislation and regulation that is due to be issued and that will affect them directly.

Europe, therefore, must be for the citizens of each member state and not necessarily and totally for the institutions of that state. We should perhaps use this opportunity to insist on bringing some humanity and compassion to an organisation that needs reform and seems cold to the citizens of the member states.

The other issues are insurance, which the Minister mentioned in his opening remarks, and the financial services division of his Department. Insurance is having an impact on businesses and individuals because their insurance costs, be they for a car, property or whatever else, have increased substantially. Whereas the Minister's Department and its financial services division may say that they will continue to review policy on the insurance sector, while we wait SMEs are under extreme pressure and individuals are under pressure. Again, the time it has taken the Government to react - it is the same for government of any kind - to matters affecting people's lives has been at a bureaucratic snail's pace, and something must be done about it. I know the Minister cannot respond to these few points while the Taoiseach is waiting to come before us now, but perhaps after the summer we will have the opportunity to consider all these issues again in the context of the Estimates or the budget for 2017, unless he wants to comment before we close.