Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief. At the outset, I ask for less than a minute of the Ceann Comhairle's forbearance regarding an issue referred to by Deputy O'Donovan just prior to the Ceann Comhairle's arrival in the Chamber. This is my last opportunity to raise it before the Dáil adjourns for the week. Another Member of the House, Deputy Mattie McGrath, made comments on the national broadcaster regarding the Ceann Comhairle's impartiality. It was a scurrilous comment and I hope that the Ceann Comhairle, as the Chair, can advise of what action can be taken. I draw his attention to the remarks, which were opportunistic, cynical and inaccurate.

I thank Deputy Eoghan Murphy for tabling this Bill and commend him on the significant amount of work that he has invested. The nub of the Bill is the taxpayers' desire to know where their money is going. As public representatives, this is an issue that all Deputies and local councillors must address. When people get their payslips every week, fortnight or month and see the considerable deductions, taxes, charges and levies, they want to know where the money is going.

I listened to the Deputy and a tax expert on "Morning Ireland" today. While the tax expert lauded the Bill's purpose and the idea behind it, he was slightly preoccupied with the issue of compliance. Although the Bill assists in that regard, its overarching aim goes well beyond encouraging people to pay their taxes. It is meant to give people information to which they should be entitled so that they can know where their taxes go and involve themselves in an active participatory democracy.

The Bill is concerned with transparency, debate, what value our society attaches to paying for certain public services and informing the public of the level of economic value that their Government has attached to those services in turn. It is an end to auction politics. The key to electoral success seemed to be party X telling people that it would raise the children's allowance by €5 if they voted for it and party Y telling people that it would raise the allowance by €6.50. This process would go on and on and the highest bidder seemed to win the office of Taoiseach. We saw where that got us and the quality of individual who held the office. Auction politics must conclude for a variety of reasons, including our membership of the euro, the stability treaty, our current mess, learning lessons from the past and the need to ensure that never again will we see the collapse in employment levels, tax revenues and property prices of recent years.

When the House, the media or talking heads discuss the economy, taxes and budgets, we no longer speak in millions of euro, which mean very little to most people, but in billions of euro. The Minister for Finance has acknowledged the Bill's commendable aim of returning the discussion to the basic level. What does something mean for a family, a household or the disposable income that is used to cater for children or a spouse? The Bill is about people's families. Good work has been invested in the Bill and I hope that it can be further fleshed out on Committee Stage. I acknowledge the Government's progress in the medium-term expenditure framework to which the Minister alluded.

I wish to raise two issues. First, when we discuss tax transparency, it will be important to ensure a good level of understanding of where a property tax, currently the household charge, is going. Many people believe it is for management fees or lights in housing estates. If we are to have a form of local taxation, people must understand it. The suggestion by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, of an ability under the new local government reforms to ring-fence the property tax in time is a healthy development for democracy and transparency.

Second, Deputy Eoghan Murphy has witnessed frustrations as a member of the Committee of Public Accounts. I am all in favour of the Bill's contents in terms of transparency. However, the committee's meeting with the HSE yesterday was nothing short of disgraceful. Regardless of the Minister or Government of the day, is it any wonder that the HSE cannot live within budget?

I asked a number of simple questions, including questions about the cost of absenteeism, the cost of sick leave, the cost of overtime for nurses and for doctors and how many on-call payments are paid to consultants. One would swear I had asked the HSE to solve world hunger by the end of the day. The response was atrocious. I was met by a wall of silence. The silence was not as a result of maliciousness or a lack co-operation but because the data did not exist. We need to be more transparent and to support this Bill and for it to go to Committee Stage but we also need to instruct our Accounting Officers, in particular in agencies like the HSE, that they need to up their game rapidly.

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