Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This question fits in very well with the conversation we have just had. Last October, I joined members of the equality budgeting campaign in making a submission to the Minister, Deputy Noonan, on whether equality budgeting could be incorporated into this country's budgetary process. He suggested that the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform is responsible for this area. At its simplest, we are looking for an analysis that would answer the question, which has just been discussed by the Minister and Deputy McDonald, of who gets hit the hardest in any proposed budget. Does the Minister believe any of the components of equality budgeting can be incorporated into this year's budgetary process? If the Dáil were to be given a distributional analysis by income, gender and age on budget day, in addition to the budget proposed by the Cabinet, I think it would be a great success because it would allow us to see who is being asked to carry the burden.

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