Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am just saying we do not get to discuss as part of the Estimates process the €8 billion which goes to service the national debt. We also do not get to discuss the contribution to the EU budget of €1.444 billion, and if we did there might be greater understanding about it. I believe we receive approximately €2 billion per annum from the EU through the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, but people would be surprised to find we pay back three quarters of it with no discussion in the House. I am not saying we should not do so, but the public needs to know that the mechanism of the House and legislation do not allow for discussion of this as part of the Estimates process.

This year €5 million of taxpayers' money is budgeted for payments to PSE Kinsale Energy Limited under the Finance Act 1992. I presume this has to do with the Kinsale gas field, but €5 million of taxpayers' money will go there and will not be voted through the House. This year we will pay €50 million in salaries and pensions to the Judiciary and holders of constitutional office and pensions and allowances to certain Members or former Members of the Oireachtas; this is not part of the Estimates process and is not voted through the House. It goes through a bank account somewhere in the Department of Finance called the Central Fund and is paid directly to all of these people with no discussion in the House as part of the Estimates process.

This year we will spend €5 billion on payments to political parties under the Electoral Acts. This is a new development which is welcome and necessary. If the tribunals taught us anything it is that there should be a more public and transparent method of funding parties so they are not reliant on big business. I agree with this and support it. It is right and correct, but how did it get slotted in to be paid out of the Central Fund without discussion during the annual Estimates process? This figure should be discussed. I am not saying it is too much or too little, but it should not be excluded from the Estimates of the line Departments.

This year we will spend €3 million on election postal charges under the Postal and Telecommunications Services Act 1983. I do not know with what this is in connection, but I suspect it is for a referendum, probably on the Seanad. I have an excellent suggestion which I have made several times, and perhaps the Minister will take heed of it. The Taoiseach came before a meeting of the Select Sub-Committee on the Department of the Taoiseach to deal with Estimates. A figure of €2 billion was included for the referendum this year on the abolition of the Seanad. All of this will be allocated to the Referendum Commission for the information campaign, and rightly so. I made the point to the Taoiseach that last year the Department of Children and Youth Affairs abused taxpayers' money by not spending it in an appropriate manner. This year it will all be spent by the Referendum Commission. It makes no sense that we can spend €2 billion this year on an information campaign for the referendum and still spend €3 million on postal communication to each registered voter. The Minister knows that many houses have four or five voters and, for example, my constituency had 16 candidates in the most recent general election. There should be a mechanism whereby registered candidates can include their names and photographs with the ballot paper. This information could be sent to a body such as the Standards in Public Office Commission and one booklet could go to each registered voter with a list of candidates and pen pictures of them. This would be preferable to the sending of this information separately by all political party candidates and independent candidates at full postage cost. Each voter should receive details of who is running, but this could be included in one document. The way it is done at present means up to 20 documents could be sent to a household if several voters are living there.

The Houses of the Oireachtas Commission has a budget this year of €112 million, and €37 million has been provided for miscellaneous items, giving a total, according to this Estimates figure, of €9.796 billion this year. All of this money needs to be spent, but it should all be discussed as part of the expenditure process. This is not captured in the legislation, which only deals with voted expenditure.

Note 6 on page 8 of the 2013 Estimates of Receipt and Expenditure for the Year Ending 31 December 2013, prepared by the Government and presented to Dáil Éireann in accordance with the provisions of Article 28 of the Constitution, deals with non-voted capital expenditure, which is not discussed in the House and is excluded from the legislation in which the Minister states ceilings will be put on expenditure. If we have a ceiling on how much we can spend on health we should have a ceiling on how much we can spend on the interest on the national debt.

It is as simple at that. If any household is in difficulty, it must look at its total expenditure, including living expenses, mortgage payments and other debt commitments. There has to be some resolution. I am not talking about write-offs but about the proportion one spends on a mortgage or, in the State's case, paying the national debt and interest. There should be a discussion every year here as part of the Estimates process and these aspects should not be excluded. What I am saying is pure common sense.

I now wish to mention the Schedule dealing with non-voted capital expenditure, which is never discussed in this House as part of the Estimates process. I was surprised to read the figures under the capital expenditure headings. We were discussing the Construction Contracts Bill in committee but had to suspend that work to attend this debate. With regard to payments under the European Communities Act, there is capital expenditure of €10 million on European Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund repayments this year, and under FEOGA there is a payment of €800 million. That sum, plus the €1.444 billion, means that Ireland is making a total contribution this year of €2.454 billion. Since Ireland is paying almost €2.5 billion to the EU in 2012, are we a net beneficiary or a net contributor to the EU? Looking at this figure, I think we could be a net contributor.

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