Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 8 February 2023
Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach
Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 11 - Public Expenditure and Reform (Revised)
Vote 12 - Superannuation and Retired Allowances (Revised)
Vote 14 - State Laboratory (Revised)
Vote 15 - Secret Service (Revised)
Vote 17 - Public Appointments Service (Revised)
Vote 18 - National Shared Services Office (Revised)
Vote 19 - Office of the Ombudsman (Revised)
Vote 39 - Office of Government Procurement (Revised)
Vote 43 - Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (Revised)
Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Given recent developments, how will retrospective legislation make progress on or inhibit Government policy and budgetary processes, for example? We produce a budget every year, and five years later we have to introduce something we should have introduced before. On what basis can this be done? Is it legal? If the Government does not adhere to the budget, it has a problem. If it fails to deliver or respond adequately to pressing needs, it is an issue for it at that stage, but if, as in several situations at present, it has to retrospectively spend what it should have spent five or ten years earlier, based on the expenditure not having been Government policy before, what is the position? I see references to strategies, for instance. It is not a matter of strategy but of Government policy at the time. Policy is of particular significance.
Any deviation from it can leave Government heavily exposed. I emphasise that not as a criticism, but merely as one who has watched the system over a number of years. We have all seen countless situations in relation to good causes that emerge after the event. That should be strictly provided for, but the State cannot overly indulge in responding retrospectively to good causes in such a way as to endanger the integrity of its finances.