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

I will start again. We are here today as part of the three-day festival of praise and self-congratulation by the Government to tell the people how wonderful it believes it and the job it has done have been. It is on a different planet from the people on the ground. This three-day debate is part of the Government's ongoing effort to have spin and PR triumph over substance. To some extent, this has been one of its main successes. The substance of what the Government has done does not fully stack up but its PR, press announcements and media coverage would have one believe it is doing exceptionally well. The Government has planned this debate well in that it is allowing three days of marathon coverage for every Minister and Minister of State, thus affording them the opportunity to pat themselves on the back in the House and write glowing self-congratulatory scripts in the hope some of the media will regurgitate their comments over the coming week in various radio and television programmes. Some people might be convinced that it is doing a great job.

I listened carefully yesterday to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin. He referred in his speech to expenditure consolidation. He stated: "The expenditure measures required for 2014 amount to €1.6 billion out of a total consolidation requirement of €2.5 billion.” He is, therefore, confirming that €1.6 billion of the budget’s consolidation requirement of €2.5 billion was achieved through expenditure cuts. This amounts to 64%, which is as close as makes no difference to two thirds of the adjustment being made at the expense of people who are relying on public services and those who need those services most.

I have always said on this side of the House that no matter how difficult financial circumstances are, the adjustment should always be achieved in a fair manner, applying a 50:50 ratio. There should be some additional taxes on those earning over €100,000, who can afford to pay more, and, unfortunately, some reductions in expenditure in line Departments with large expenditure headings. For a Labour Minister to say two thirds of the adjustment has been achieved through expenditure cuts is surprising.

Absent in the Minister's script yesterday was the word "fairness". The Labour Party, in government, has sold its soul by going into government with a right-wing Fine Gael Government. We have a very right-wing Government under Fine Gael, which is fine because a certain number of people voted for that party. People know the form of the party and that it does not want to tax higher earners. It has not made provision for this. My issue with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, whose script I am responding to, is that I do not understand what the Labour Party is doing in government at all. It should let Fine Gael get on with the Fine Gael agenda. The Labour Party is not even the mudguard for the Fine Gael vehicle in government. It should have the decency to let Fine Gael do what it wants to do, which is what is being done. The Labour Party is trying to provide some cover of decency over what is being done but the people will judge it not on the PR spin, which it is very good at, but on the substance of what it actually does.

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, who stated two thirds of the adjustment was achieved through expenditure cuts, has hit the people who are relying on the health service the most. Waiting times for appointments with consultants and outpatient appointments have skyrocketed in the past couple of years. Pupils in primary school cannot obtain orthodontic appointments. There are cuts affecting medical cards, not only for those over 70 but also for those who are the most vulnerable and require a medical card on health grounds. There has been a dramatic reduction, of 40%, in respect of the discretionary medical card. We witnessed reductions in the pupil–teacher ratio and major cuts by the Department of Social Protection. There have been cuts affecting the elderly, such as that to the telephone allowance. Many other entitlements have been taken from the elderly. There have been severe cuts to payments for young people and a reduction in their jobseeker's allowance. The latter is part of a deliberate policy of forcing young people to emigrate, as tens of thousands are doing. The Minister will say the number on the live register is decreasing. This is because many people who were on it are now in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, England and elsewhere.

I have outlined the key financial parameters that the Government has been working on. I do not understand how the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, as a member of the Labour Party, can stand over them. He trumpets the great changes he has made to freedom of information procedures. Again, he has succeeded in having spin triumph over substance because he is retaining every single charge that was ever introduced in freedom of information legislation. He criticised the outgoing Government for introducing such charges and said he would totally reform freedom of information procedures. Not only is he retaining every single charge introduced but he is also introducing new ones for search and retrieval of a scale not even envisaged in the current legislation. He is selling this as a victory.

The Minister excluded Irish Water from the freedom of information legislation. As a result of pressure applied by Fianna Fáil, he was forced to do a U-turn. He said "No" at a committee meeting but we forced him to change his mind in the Chamber. He made a humiliating U-turn, albeit a good and proper one. We will force him to make a similar U-turn to bring EirGrid under freedom of information legislation. It is unbelievable that he is still standing over the current position. Fine Gael and the Labour Party will be voting on the matter in this Chamber when Report Stage is considered. The Opposition will succeed in forcing the Government to bring EirGrid under freedom of information legislation. I do not know how the Government could go before the people in local or general elections while refusing to apply freedom of information legislation to EirGrid in view of the gross incompetence of that organisation.

One of the triumphs the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform mentioned in his script concerned public service savings achieved from 2009. Most of the savings actually achieved were in 2009, 2010 and 2011, before the Minister took office and before his Department was even established. He takes credit for the various savings since 2009 but the most important aspect of the Croke Park agreement for public servants was that there was an external mechanism to verify the savings that were being achieved.

The Minister has abandoned this and, by way of a lack of transparency, has ensured there is no external mechanism to verify the savings that will accrue under the Haddington Road agreement, the successor to the Croke Park agreement. This is a serious flaw. He talks about openness and transparency, but one can see that he is concealing and preventing access to information which previously had been available under the Croke Park agreement. He abolished this in the Haddington Road agreement, which means that there will be no external verification.

With regard to procurement, the Department exported 5,000 Irish jobs last year by offering contracts worth €650 million to companies from outside the State. If the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, were a Minister in France or Germany, he would not do this but would give the contracts to domestic companies.

The Minister has spoken about whistleblowers legislation. We received a report from the Comptroller and Auditor General dealing with the fixed charge fines for driving offences and saw the attitude of the Minister for Justice and Equality and the Garda Commissioner to the whistleblower in that instance. This is reflective of the attitudes of the Government. However, we will make it change its view on whistleblowing in the Garda Síochána and force it, by way of voting in this House, to allow people to bring their concerns directly to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission.

The essence of the Government's idea of political reform is to grab all power for central government. There has been a power grab by the Government. The first thing it did on taking office was o abolish democratically elected local authorities around the country, town councils that were effective in providng for local participation in local decision making. It then proceeded to hold a referendum which, thankfully, the people rejected and which would have given the Government more power through the abolition of the Seanad. It has absolute control in this Chamber and does not want opposition in the Seanad, where it does not have such absolute control. The people gave it their answer and its power grab in that respect was rejected. It also held a referendum before that, which was proposed by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, to provide for Government-controlled Oireachtas inquiries, but the people, rightly, said "No" because it did not trust Government-controlled Oireachtas inquiries to make findings.

There has been a complete insult on the sale of State assets. A sum of €200 million has been received for the sale of the national lottery in the next couple of months. The Minister promised the Dáil that this money would be used for the national children's hospital, but he has put it in a slush fund for Fine Gael and the Labour Party for the local elections campaigns. The spend is €200 million willy-nilly around the country from that slush fund. That is political reform.

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