Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I refer to the question of the Estimates. I accept the Government is new to office following a general election but the Estimates of expenditure for 2011 were published six months ago and this House has yet to debate a single Estimate for any Department, the exception being the Estimate for the Central Statistics Office to enable the payments to the census enumerators. I will not rehearse the point because the Chief Whip did not like my comments as they were a little harsh on the Government but my point was well made.

We are nearly in July and half the year is over. The expenditure for the full year is €57 billion and half of this sum will have been spent while a great proportion of the remaining will have been committed. It will be a false, ridiculous, ludicrous charade of a debate in each of the committees in the coming weeks and then we will all troop back in here and vote it through. We would do a greater service if we acknowledged it as a charade on this occasion. This has been a problem historically, and there is no good reason for it. Years ago the budget was held in January and I understood that could affect the Estimates based on budget day announcements. The Department of Finance used to work on bringing the Finance Bill through the House in March and April and when this was finished, the Department concentrated on the Estimates debate and that was well into the year. The budget is now in the first week of December. In recent times, there have been little or no changes in the budget to effect the final Estimates. There is no reason the Estimates for 2012 should not be discussed in the House in December of this year, not halfway through 2012 when the money is already spent. I ask the Ceann Comhairle to assist in this matter because it does a disservice to the House to have committees discussing Estimates of expenditure when billions of euro under each of them have already been spent. We are not giving politics a good name. It is nonsense to talk about public accountability when the money is already spent.

With regard to the committees, Deputy Rabbitte did a report on the Committee of Public Accounts a few years ago with a recommendation to discuss the Estimates committee by committee. Most committees spend about 70 or 80 minutes in the entire year in discussion of a Department's Vote for €5 billion or €8 billion as the case may be. The same committee will probably spend several meetings belly-aching about what the Government or the Department was doing, having not bothered to spend even a decent period of time discussing how the money would be spent by the Department. It is sometimes left to the Committee of Public Accounts to discuss departmental expenditure a year or two after the event. I ask the Minister of State to take my point into account which is not to do with legislation but rather is good practice.

In fairness to the Minister, Deputy Howlin, a unified budgetary Estimates process has been put in place and in my view, the Budget Statement on budget day should be a joint statement by the two Ministers. The Minister for Finance should announce the details of tax increases and all those matters relevant to the Department of Finance and perhaps matters relevant to the management of the national debt and banking issues. The Budget Statement is based on an analysis of Government expenditure. The Minister on budget day refers regularly to increases in social welfare payments and under various other headings of expenditure while other Ministers make announcements relevant to their Departments. If the Minister, Deputy Howlin, is responsible for expenditure, then he should be here on budget day announcing all the measures relating to expenditure which traditionally have been under the remit of the Department of Finance. Deputy Howlin will probably be pleased to hear me saying this and I do not know if the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, has the same view. If the Government is to give the new Department its head and give it power and if the Minister, Deputy Howlin, is responsible for all the negotiations on expenditure in line Departments and for changes in grant schemes under various headings of capital expenditure, while acknowledging the Minister for Finance must approve capital expenditure, it is appropriate that the Minister responsible for public expenditure should be the one to make the announcement in the House on budget day. We should see a division of the roles and this is the reason for this new Department. It does not make any sense for the Minister for Finance to continue to make all the announcements on budget day when much of them will not relate to his Department and are relevant to the new Department with responsibility for public expenditure. Perhaps the Minister of State would comment on my point and convey it to the Minister. I am concerned the Estimates debate has been a bit of a charade and the same will happen this year but perhaps next year it could happen in a timely manner.

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