Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

People would have been alarmed by comments made at the weekend by the chairman of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council. This is a body established to give advice to Government in respect of budgetary and fiscal policy. There is no question that the advice of the council has been studiously ignored over the past three years. This weekend, the chairman of the council, Professor John McHale said, "if I found I wasn't having an effect, I would consider my position." He went on to say that resignation is a tool we have to raise the political costs of bad policies.

I find it extraordinary to a certain extent that there has been no comment from Government about this or about the budget submission made by the council. I have read its submission and I think everybody in the House should read it. In terms of politicians wanting to do x, y and z, we may not like it but if we are to learn lessons, I respectfully suggest that the least we should do in the House is have a comprehensive debate on the position put forward by the council. The Taoiseach should initiate this. I am asking him to allow Government time to discuss the report of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council in respect of fiscal options for the forthcoming year and beyond. There is no point in having a fiscal council if its advice is consistently ignored and not just ignored but no process entered into where there is any deliberation on it and any counterpoints put with research and evidence. We can all have conflicting views on things but it is not satisfactory when the report is just published, put to one side and dismissed. There is the risk that the body perceives itself to be undermined in terms of the work it is charged to do. At a minimum, I would have thought that we would have a Dáil debate on it so I ask the Taoiseach to agree to give time for that.

The programme for Government contains a commitment to a transparent process around the budget. We know that last year, we did not get the correct or truthful figures relating to the health Estimate. It is very clear from the correspondence between the chief executive of the HSE and the former Minister for Health that on budget day, we did not get the truth relating to the health Estimate and that in essence, we got false figures dressed up around medical card probity and so on. When one reads the correspondence, one can see that the chief executive said that it was €500 million short on top of deficits it had taken on board from the previous year.

In order for political parties to put forward counter proposals to the Government's budget, we need absolute transparency in terms of the health Estimate for 2015 and we need to know the outcomes for 2014. Yesterday, the Minister for Health accepted that it was a €500 million deficit to the end of the year and that in essence, €1 billion is being sought in 2015.

In light of the programme for Government commitment to a transparent budget, would the Taoiseach be agreeable to the entire process relating to health being made transparent in advance of the budget and the expenditure figure that will be laid down by the Government on budget day? In other words, the figures that will be contained in correspondence between the HSE and the Departments of Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform will be made available to Members of the House in advance of the budget and that we know the proposition coming from the HSE, its presentation, its concerns about patient safety and so on so that we would all be in a more informed position in budget day to make an informed commentary on whether the expenditure on health is valid or not or the figures that will be provided are valid or not. It is the least the Government can do given what happened last year, the enormous stress on our public health system over the past nine months, the extraordinary difficulties in the acute and elderly systems and the fact that hundreds of people cannot access fair deal and hundreds of people are in acute wards. We need absolute transparency on that health budget and I would appreciate it if the Taoiseach could do that.

The programme for Government also states that "we will bring to an end the unacceptable executive practice where no record is kept of ministerial involvement with an issue and resulting decisions". Given the decisions made to appoint various people to the board of Irish Museum of Modern Art and other State boards, can the Taoiseach assure us that adequate records were taken of all those decisions and that he will make them available to the House or will we have to revert to freedom of information requests to the relevant Department and possibly the Department of the Taoiseach?

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