Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

I am sure no one has counted the number. These matters arise daily. Any request for expenditure from the Central Fund will be made to the Exchequer section of the Department of Finance. This procedure will continue, but the request will be made by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. It will not generate any great new bureaucratic difficulty. It might lead to better oversight procedures in terms of expenditure, given that there will be a Minister whose exclusive role will be to oversee expenditure and bring about reform and change as opposed to having a Minister with all that responsibility in addition to the macroeconomic responsibilities which, as the Deputy opposite knows full well, occupied full time the working lives of Ministers for Finance in recent years.

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