Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

I am glad to be back in the Chamber. I do not seem to have graduated to the rank of Teachta Dála non grata yet. It is fairly apposite that I am taking part in this debate because much of today's dissension centred around the difficulties that exist in the way we dishonestly portray Government expenditure in terms of its projection and eventual analysis as to whether public money has been properly spent or not. In a case in point, the Government made promises for years on a particular funding project that has yet to come to pass. The Minister has probably included it in some form in the Estimates. The way the Estimates are put together makes it difficult to establish whether it is there.

This afternoon a debate took place on national radio on the quality of literature. It centred around the Taoiseach's daughter, who is a popular author. I will not enter a debate on whether her work rates as high literature. The Book of Estimates would be extremely difficult to define if we were to consider it as a work of literature. Is it fiction or faction? It certainly is not fact. It contains so many loose elements it is impossible for those of us on this side of the House and the public to properly analyse what it means on Government policies and funding important public expenditure.

If this were a review of a cookbook, one would find that half of the ingredients required for the recipes were missing. It is an empty document full of holes. We are supposed to fill in the gaps based on the experience of previous Estimates and some form of educated guesswork on what the Minister for Finance is likely to do on budget day.

The Book of Estimates contains some indications that the Government has a fairly obtuse sense of priorities. Funding for environmental protection has decreased despite a 13% increase for the Environmental Protection Agency. Money to be spent on water services, air quality and other forms of pollution control are dramatically reduced. To me that indicates where that particular priority lies in the Government's policy scheme. Capital funding for health, which is meant to be a Government priority, and transport is no higher than it was in the previous year. No percentage increase whatsoever is indicated, unless the Minister has rabbits in hats that he wants to reveal on budget day. Probably that is the case.

Considering the longer-term picture the Minister chooses to reveal in the multi-annual envelope for capital expenditure on those and other Government spending programmes also gives reason to be worried and disconcerted. This is particularly due to the increasing use of private money in capital acquisition during the years to come, starting slowly and increasing up to 2009. I must admit I feel extremely queasy about this intent of the Government, particularly regarding education. As a member of the Committee of Public Accounts, I read the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the failure of the pilot scheme on education, the 18% higher costs and the fact that going deeper and further down this road will not give the taxpayer any greater value for money. It will give private business interests more of a say in public services than they deserve and more than is healthy for our society and body politic.

I will speak in general terms for the remainder of my contribution. The Minister may not be aware of an American book, Fast Food Nation, which discusses the commercialisation of the education sector in the United States. Private interests investing capital, taking over the management of schools and putting in vending machines has a circular effect, not only to the disadvantage to the education of the pupils in such schools, but ultimately to their health and social deterioration.

The combination of the two elements that make up the Government means it has embarked on the same roads, producing a Book of Estimates that can only be read as a fictitious document and which will not lead us in the political direction required to balance social inequities in this country. I regret to say that regardless of what the Minister for Finance produces on 7 December, it will not fill the yawning gaps in this Book of Estimates.

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