Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to share time with Deputy Tom Fleming, with the agreement of the House.

First, I wish to pick up on something Deputy Lawlor said about the 1977 election. I agree it was an election that was bought and also that we have paid a price for that type of behaviour. Essentially, we need to balance our budgets, but we must balance them within a social context. The introduction of this legislation is very much a part of the European fiscal compact, which is something that was accepted by the citizens of Ireland. Clearly, the compact was accepted and we must live with the consequences of that. I feel that we let ourselves down badly in that regard by not negotiating some debt write-off before entering that process. We have been left with very little tolerance in the running of public services. The requirements of the compact add to our difficulties in raising funds and covering the cost of public services.

Had this legislation been passed ten or 12 years ago, we would possibly have been able to manage ourselves better. Having said that, a whole raft of legislation would have been required because budgetary management was not the only thing that went wrong in the context of the bubble in the economy. I also believe that the Maastricht treaty was a flawed process and thought so at the time. However, the euro is clearly a fact of life now and we must stick to the rules, which are very unfair in terms of the burden that the Irish people have been asked to bear.

I wish to draw attention to a number of issues with this legislation. State revenues must be paid into one fund, called the Central Fund, as outlined in the Bills Digest. However, that can be misused. If one takes the example of the carbon fund, there is major resistance to a carbon tax because it is seen as just another tax rather than a fund that is used to counterbalance the harm caused by the use of dirty fossil fuels. The money is not ring-fenced and we do not see an output from it.

There is a certain amount of dishonesty surrounding how our budgets continue to be devised. I would have thought that now, more than ever, we need to be honest with people. We need to be honest about how money is raised, how it is spent and what funds are available. The local property tax, for example, is not spent locally. As money is being raised through a property tax, it is being withdrawn from the local government fund. This means that there are no visible new services provided on foot of a new tax.

The way in which we devise our budgets is important, but we get very little time. Budgets are rushed through and often guillotined. Very often, amendments proposed by members of the Opposition are rejected out of hand. I completely accept that the Constitution does not allow us to put a charge on the State but sometimes the power to rule amendments out of order is overused because, on some occasions, what members of the Opposition are proposing will result in a saving rather than a charge to the Exchequer. That issue must be examined in the context of how we devise our budgets in the future.

It must be asked if there really is Cabinet responsibility, especially in the context of something like the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation Bill on the so-called prom night, when it was the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council that was in the loop and not the Cabinet.

Sometimes it is not only a question of the Dáil not being fully informed; in that case, the Cabinet was not even fully informed. People find it offensive when they read in a newspaper about our budgetary process or aspects of our budgets being debated in the German Parliament in advance of our considering them, and that has taken place several times.

There should be a greater honesty about how we do things. Not long ago we were debating the Motor Vehicle (Duties and Licences) Bill, the purpose of which was to raise additional taxation under each category from motorbike up to articulated lorry. Licence fees were being raised. Less was to be raised in that Bill than the amount it allowed to be taken out of the motor taxation fund to put against the national debt. Why did we not simply call it the national debt tax? We are trying to hoodwink people into believing that these are taxes for specific things when in fact they are not for what we have claimed they are for. There will be a price to pay for such dishonesty.

Funding for the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission is included in the Bill. That is non-voted expenditure which comes from the Central Fund, but the commission is not representative. For example, no one from Sinn Féin, the Technical Group or the Independents in the Seanad has any involvement in the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, a forum at which one may put forward proposals to reduce the amount of expenditure. I have tabled several proposals in the past in this regard. However, because the legislation was laid before the House on the last sitting day of December last, it was rushed through as a matter of course. Such so-called oversight is completely unacceptable.

We have been forced to do this because we signed up to the fiscal compact. We held a referendum and the proposal was accepted. There is no option but to put forward this legislation because the troika is effectively telling us that we must do it. However, we have not heard from the European Union about whether there is a social union, whether housing is an issue that should be provided for within our budgets, or whether our health care or education will be properly provided for. I believe this is one-dimensional in that regard. Further, I believe the Government has been responsible for a great deal of spin, referring to the protection of headline rates and core rates when in fact we know virtually everything outside of these have been cut, as has funding for the issues I have drawn attention to previously. I call for a more honest approach to how we do business, because people are not foolish. They will recognise these things and there will be a price to pay for trying to hoodwink people into thinking they are getting something they have paid for when in fact the money is going elsewhere.

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