Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We must meet them and I assure the Minister that I am not obsessed with process. I am obsessed with getting the right information. There is a large national protest of people with intellectual and physical disabilities and their carers. They are terrified that the Minister or his colleague, the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, might decide to cut a further €54 million from them. They do not know whether it will occur because there is no draft budget to interrogate.

In other countries, parliaments and citizens are given draft budgets three months before budget day. They take the form of technical appendices containing the governments' proposals and the impact of same on people with disabilities, people living in poverty and children who cannot get enough food. The parliaments and civic societies engage with the governments on the draft budgets. This is not the case in Ireland.

I am not interested in ticking boxes. I am interested in this Parliament being able to fulfil its constitutional role, which is to consider the Estimates. This is not the case currently.

See this speech in context