Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In April this year the Minister published the Revised Estimates for the public service for 2013 and, as set out, they provide Members with a little more detail and information on each Department's budgetary allocation as noted in the expenditure report for 2013, published on budget day last December. It is worth remembering that Fine Gael and the Labour Party's programme for Government committed to opening the budget process to the full gaze of public scrutiny in a way that would restore confidence and stability. Nevertheless, the announcement of the 2013 budget last December was shrouded in secrecy. The Minister for Health's failure to set out even in the broadest brush strokes the detail of his package of cuts was scandalous and much commented on at the time. I can only hope that lessons have been learned from that episode.

The addition of what the Minister deems "key performance" information regarding programme outputs is of course helpful to Members in analysing Departments' spending and output targets; however, he consistently over-eggs the depth of information provided. We can take the Department of Social Protection as an example. The 2013 expenditure report provides a single page to set out €452 million in cuts, and the 2013 output targets data as set out in the Revised Estimates take up just a third of a page. That is hardly in-depth information. This additional detail is helpful but it is a cursory glance over departmental budgets and in many instances very broad policy commitments which fall short of specific targets, and not much more.

The new format assists Members and committees in holding Ministers to account, but it is an overstatement to claim these measures will significantly improve the management of public resources. There is much management-speak coming from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and we could be forgiven for thinking the Minister is drowning in data on public sector outputs, strategic management and fiscal frameworks.

The Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill due to conclude in the Seanad will now give legal standing to the existing multi-annual departmental ceilings. This legislation, we are told, will anchor other reforms to multi-annual budgeting and will allow for sensible structural planning and prioritisation within each area of public expenditure, encompassing full public input and parliamentary oversight and affording the Government the flexibility to ensure that the appropriate fiscal stance is taken. We have a new public spending code that sets out the rules and procedures underpinning value for money, ensuring current and capital expenditure are both subject to rigorous value for money appraisal. Committees are to be presented with these assessments at some point in the future to assist members in scrutinising public spending. A new comprehensive expenditure review is promised for this year - although it has not yet started - to lay the foundations for the three-year multi-annual ceilings. Focused policy assessments have been introduced and the Irish Government economic and evaluation service and the public service evaluation network have been established, with statistics published online by Ireland Stat. To be frank, it is a wonder the Minister gets any work done while overseeing such a myriad of management mechanisms, and it seems clear he is getting lost in the labyrinth. Management is a tool for the Government and the public service to deliver on social and economic commitments that serve the public interest, but it is not an end in itself. The kind of management-speak that has come to mark the Department and the Minister's tenure there demonstrates that the Government has lost its way somewhat. We can consider how even the wealthiest profit-driven multinationals embrace corporate social responsibility as a concept and yet the newly formed Department of Public Expenditure and Reform rarely makes mention of the very citizens it was set up to serve.

Many of those people who voted for the Labour Party in 2011 did so because they wanted to soften the edges of a Fine Gael-led Government. Labour Ministers were to be the check and balance in a conservative cabinet. Nevertheless, we find ourselves drowning in data, with little or no mention of the savage impact of five austerity budgets on families and women in particular across the State and across the social spectrum. A total of €452 million has been taken out of the Department of Social Protection, €1.1 billion from the Department of Health, €123 million from the Department of Education and Skills and €16 million from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. There have been reductions in social welfare entitlements, back-to-school allowances and the respite care grant, which was mentioned already and debated mightily at budget time. Of the menu of cuts, it was the most mind-boggling.

Then there are cuts to State pensions, primary health care provision and the list goes on and on, as the public is only too well aware. This is only one side of the balance sheet for families because we are not even dealing with the increases in taxes and charges during the years or the failure of Governments, past and present, to deal with the issue of mortgages in distress. Labour Party Ministers were to act as the checks and balances in a conservative Cabinet. The party's Members anticipated this and I suspect that is why last year's party conference called for the annual budget to be equality proofed by undertaking a distributional analysis of proposed budgetary measures of all income groups and for the evidence generated as part of the proofing process to be published as an integral part of the budgetary documentation. I have raised this commitment given by the Minister's party with him regularly because I cannot understand why he has not acted on that sensible and well thought out instruction.

The Minister's bottom line mentality is not delivering. It is clearly at odds with the aims of Labour Party policy or the posturing of the party. He can bamboozle the House with all the data his Department can muster, but it will not matter one whit if he has not delivered on his own policy agenda during the lifetime of the Government, a policy agenda that those who voted for the Labour Party assumed was driven by fairness, social equity and inclusion, even in times of strict budgetary constraint. That was the expectation, to which the party has failed comprehensively to live up. The programme for Government states its commitment to ensuring the rights of women and men to equality of treatment and participate fully in society are upheld. The measure of any reform agenda, including budgetary reform, will be the experience of citizens in seeking and accessing services. The Minister needs to hear this because he has a window to make a difference not only in people's lives but also to fundamentally change the budgetary process in the public interest.

Measures that are implemented must be subjected to an equality audit quantifying the impact of cuts on all income groups and this information should inform budgetary decisions and ishould be published. It should be fully accessible by Oireachtas Members and the public. Sinn Féin recently introduced legislation that would place equality impact assessment schemes and consultation on a statutory compulsory basis for all Departments and public bodies when introducing new measures, be they policy or budgetary-related. These measures would ensure the adverse impacts of the annual budget, for example, on specific groups in society were not only exposed but dealt with to remove the entrenched inequality in good times and in bad. It is worth acknowledging that there was inequality in the good times and that it has deepened and been exacerbated in these difficult and bad times.

The Minister cannot continue to set his face against equality budgeting. If he wants something to be reformed and radically different and which has a prospect of success to deliver for citizens with the fairness that was the mantra of his party on entering government, it would be a logical action for him to take. We oppose the Revised Estimates. We have opposed the Minister's austerity approach at every turn and will continue in that vein, not to be negative for the sake of it - something of which the Minister often accuses me - but because we witness at first hand the negative impact this agenda is having on people's lives and their security in society and on the economy. It is a deflationary, flawed and ill-conceived approach.

I refer to the detail provided of the Haddington Road agreement savings. I would like that information to be broken down further. I am sure the Minister's officials have access to it. His valiant defence of the agreement was that it would only hurt high earners, as it only affects those earning €65,000, but based on the limited information he has provided, 20% of the envisaged savings will come from the pay cut, while 80% fall across the board. He has made a virtue of the fact that he has protected the core pay of low paid workers, but he has taken his pound of flesh from them once again. The information he presented reflects this.

See this speech in context