Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Let us deal first with the issue of preparing alternative budgets. I and my colleagues spent 14 years in opposition from the time of the defeat of the then rainbow Government in 1997 until our re-election to Government in 2011. In that 14 years we prepared, each year, alternative budget proposals. We did so seriously. We went to the Department of Finance and asked it to cost various options. We did not do it on the back of an envelope based on replies to parliamentary questions. There is a facility which has been available for many years in the Department of Finance whereby Opposition parties' budgetary proposals are examined and costed. The departmental officials will give advice and say what one can or cannot do. Interestingly, and quite rightly so, when in opposition we were repeatedly asked by the media about our budget proposals. They scrutinised them and examined the money to see if it stacked up. It beggars belief that none of the Opposition parties, and none of the Opposition Independents it would appear, went into the Department of Finance to do any kind of serious examination of their budget proposals in advance of this budget.

See this speech in context