Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

The challenges we have faced over the past number of years continue to be a reality we must all confront. The sheer scale of the task to stabilise the public finances has been indisputable but nevertheless they are challenges my colleagues and I have addressed head on and this is borne out by the fact that we continue to meet or exceed all of our fiscal targets under the EU-IMF programme.

We must continue to push forward the reforms that are necessary for the country to recover its economic sovereignty. While we are making significant progress, the Exchequer deficit so far this year stands at over €4 billion. This is not a sustainable level of borrowing and this Government remains steadfast in its commitment to balancing the books while introducing positive, sensible and prudent reforms to ensure the scarce resources at our disposal are directed toward delivering well-managed and well-targeted public spending, through modernised, effective and accountable public services.

This Government has now been in office for over two years. During this short time, we have introduced a number of important budgetary reforms aimed at enhancing the openness and transparency of the budgetary framework and improving expenditure management across Departments, which had through the good times been allowed lapse into disorder. We have completely modernised and reformed the annual Estimates process, built performance-related information into the heart of the budgetary documentation, and brought evidence-based policy-making to the forefront of public service delivery.

These reforms are in keeping with the broader Government commitment that performance information should feed into the decision-making process at all levels, and that active performance management should be a key feature of how projects are delivered and continually evaluated within the public service. It goes to the heart of parliamentary oversight that Ministers and public service managers should be held accountable against clear targets set out in the budget.

In November 2012 my colleague, the Minister for Finance, introduced the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2012 which came into effect on 31 December 2012. The Act imposes a duty on the Government to ensure compliance with the budgetary rule and the debt rule, which were introduced as part of wider EU fiscal reforms. The Act also puts the role of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council onto a statutory basis. The council has been assigned the monitoring and assessment functions required of an independent national institution under the fiscal compact treaty and, under EU rules, macro-economic forecasts on which budgetary decisions are made must in future be independently endorsed by the council.

The reports of the independent fiscal council provide another useful perspective for Oireachtas committees to assess how well the Government is managing the public finances.

Aside from these domestic reforms that have been introduced-----

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