Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Why does the Minister refuse to publish the pre-budget outlook this year? Last year, when Deputy Brian Cowen was still Minister for Finance, he praised the publication of a pre-budget outlook as a major reform and improvement in transparency and accountability of the public finances. The Minister and his officials must have a very good idea of the spending plans by Department at this time or they do not deserve to be in their jobs. If they were in the private sector and in charge of a major corporation with €56 billion in revenues — falling — coming into the company and could not, four months before the end of the year and three weeks before their budget, tell us the expected figures, they would be sacked. Is the Minister working on a similar strategy to Charlie McCreevy's disastrous trick of introducing decentralisation like pulling a rabbit out of a hat? Nobody knew the figures and it took time to make an assessment of his plan, which turned out to be one of the worst of the many follies and vanities of the Celtic tiger. It caused gross confusion in the Civil Service and significant increases in the number of public servants employed when resources and head offices were duplicated. Is the Minister planning a similar trick for budget day? Will he just pull the figures out of a hat? We are going to hear them as he stands up and the capacity to make an assessment will only be delayed by a few hours. Is he going to waste several vital weeks in terms of setting a course for stability and recovery for our economy?

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