Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

First, will the Tánaiste clarify the timetable for the publication and presentation to the House and to the Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service of the two reports, the first by Herr Regling and Mr. Watson and the second by Governor Honohan? I understand the Minister to have said, and I understand from the authors of the two reports, that they are being presented to the Minister for Finance on Monday evening, 31 May, as set out originally by the Government. Presumably, the Government will receive them the next day. Does that mean the timetable is that they will be released immediately to the House because the terms of the Government motion indicate that the Houses of the Oireachtas and the appropriate Oireachtas committee, the finance committee, will be invited to consider the findings of the report, and the terms of reference of the banking inquiry have to be dealt with by the end of June. Given the limited number of sitting days available between Monday, 31 May, and 30 June, can the Tánaiste indicate the Government's timetable for that?

Second, on the €750 billion proposed EU fund which is to be established in the context of the difficulties of the euro, we had an indication from the Taoiseach that it probably requires legislation. Can the Tánaiste indicate the timeframe for that legislation, given that it is proposed that the House will rise early in July?

Third, in the context of the preparations for next year's budget, presumably Departments have been working through the McCarthy report. Does the Government have any proposals to facilitate the House with a discussion on the position of each Department in regard to the implementation of those parts of the McCarthy report with which the Government intends to proceed? It is almost impossible to do any kind of budget planning for later in the year unless we have some understanding of the fate of the recommendations in the McCarthy report. In the Tánaiste's own area, for example, we have the ongoing reviews of special needs assistants and no general information is available on the Government's approach, nor in regard to the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation's area. We have no indication of what the Government is doing with the recommendations in the McCarthy report, which were highly critical of investment in fourth level science and research and on which I believe there is cross-party agreement, which is important-----

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