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

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 3, line 23, after "approval" to insert "and includes service of the national debt".

I welcome the opportunity to move amendment No. 1. We are discussing amendments Nos. 1 to 13, inclusive, as part of this overall topic. We discussed it at length on Committee Stage. It is the same amendment, by and large. Some of my other amendments might be slightly different. This amendment is a repeat so I will go through it to the same extent.

There is merit in a number of these amendments. I can understand how the Minister might have a technical issue with one or two issues. The essential issue is that each year when we come to discuss our voted Estimates in the Dáil, we only discuss the Estimates that come before the line Minister for voting. This can equate to somewhere in the order of €40 billion per annum whereas there is approximately another €10 billion per annum which does not come before the Dáil as part of the annual Estimates process. The fact that the national Parliament does not discuss the full range of Government expenditure each year is a flaw. In a way, some of the money is kept away from the full level of public scrutiny one would have during the normal Estimates debate. We could discuss the Estimates debate and I must be critical of my colleagues in the House because they do not give sufficient time to the Estimates debate in respect of line Departments. I know some of them must still go through the House for this year. We all know that most of the money is already spent and committed and we are still only voting on the Estimates.

That said, many Members of the House will give scant regard to the actual Estimates debate. I want all these items to be brought into the Estimates process and voted expenditure. We can have many Departments with budgets of €8 billion, €9 billion and up to €12 billion and €13 billion going through each year and the Estimates debate can take an hour or two. When one takes out the set pieces - the opening statements - very little real detailed scrutiny takes place and I would welcome greater scrutiny for the Estimates across the House.

That said, the purpose of these 13 amendments is to take out items from the Central Fund that should be brought into the Estimates debate. I understand there is an issue with the question of the servicing of the national debt. The Minister's official spoke nicely to me after Committee Stage to say that many countries might not want to lend to a country if they felt it could be caught up in a political wrangle over whether we pay the interest each year. I accept that point. Essentially, the next Government is bound by whatever is agreed now and it cannot be changed by way of an Estimates debate or a Government having a slim majority or no majority on some occasions. There is merit in that point but a halfway house can be found and a proper debate on that issue held in this House in parallel with the Estimates debate. As part of the Estimates debate, there might be an addendum, appendix or complementary note added to it involving items relevant to that Minister's Department, for example, the Department of Finance for payment of the national debt, which will not be voted on but the process of having the debate should happen each year. There is a case to be made for doing that.

My real concern related to when I went down through the list of items. The second item, which is amendment No. 2, relates to a contribution to the EU budget. I know somebody will give me a reason that the Oireachtas should not be allowed to discuss that each year but I am sure-----

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