Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Buttimer wants a debate but he will not get one because that is not how this process works.

I welcome the budget and the presentation of it but I cannot welcome the process around it. Six years ago this country's economy crashed and six years later, nothing has changed when it comes to Dáil Éireann and the way we prepare, debate and approve budgets as a Parliament. Where is the role of parliamentarians in this budget? Where is the role of Dáil Éireann? Something was presented to us as a fait accompliand we debate it after the fact. That is not acceptable.

People will say that these issues around Dáil reform are not that important, that they only matter to a few people, that they do not matter when the economy is getting better, that the budget seems to be a good one and people are happy with it, and that the crisis is over, but it matters to us in Fine Gael because we said it matters. Prior to coming into Government, when we examined the problems around the economy and how they arose we did not just blame the bankers, the developers, the speculators and the Financial Regulator; we put the political system at the heart of that failure. It was in our 2011 manifesto - political failure lies at the heart of Ireland's economic collapse. In our programme for Government we said we would open up the process of the budget to the full glare of public scrutiny, and a senior Minister of Government came into the Committee of Public Accounts and said that the idea of a big-bang budget day was a nonsense and that someone coming into the Dáil to reveal the secrets decided by Cabinet on one given day was crazy.

The Government has done much that is good but if we set ourselves a standard we must meet that standard and hold ourselves to it. In the simple case of having a functioning Parliament around the budgetary process, that means looking abroad and taking best practice. In so many other aspects of Irish political and public life, we talk about best practice from abroad or best practice from the private sector yet here in the Parliament, six years after the economic collapse, we are failing woefully in catching up to what a modern day parliament should look like and how it should operate.

In terms of what that means, we need a dedicated committee to budgetary matters sitting on a year-round basis to examine the forecasts and determine if they are being met to see how budgets are being implemented, and to plan for the year ahead. It means debating elements of the budget months in advance of a vote being taken on them in a dedicated committee. That might be boring to some but it is necessary work. It means Ministers coming in to the committee to defend their money requests ahead of a decision being taken on them so that all of us can be across the detail. It means also an independent Oireachtas budgetary office where any Deputy in Government or in opposition can have their ideas properly costed and then debated thoroughly.

It is not too radical to suggest that a member of the Opposition, be they an Independent or of a party, would have to have their proposals properly costed before they came in to participate in the debate on the budget. It is not too radical to suggest that a member of the Government backbenchers would be aware of the detail of the decisions they will be endorsing when they cast their vote on the budget. Even if it is radical, we said we would do it so we should.

On the details of the budget, we have unexpected buoyancy in the economy. That means we were not in a position to continue to reduce spending but to reduce taxation and increase spending. I fear that might have been a mistake. The caveat on this is that we have another chance to have this properly debated in terms of the recommendations from the Fiscal Advisory Council, the warnings from the European Commission or even the opinions put forward put forward by the Central Bank. We continue to borrow to run this State and given that position and with the increased buoyancy, we should have injected it into one-off capital expenditure that would benefit the economy. The important time to invest in capital expenditure is not at the top of the economy but as it begins to grow so that the economy can benefit from that expenditure and continue to grow in later years.

I welcome the decreases in taxation. That was important because there is too much taxation in this society and because decreasing taxation in certain areas will help continue the recovery so that there will be more money in the economy for expenditure, but not while we are still borrowing to run the State. I would have liked to debate the possibility of a neutral budget. I did not see a spending increase on the spending side.

On the spending side, I am concerned that this now signals the end of reform in the public sector because the necessity that was brought about by the financial crisis to cut costs and define efficiencies no longer exists. Reform of child welfare is imperative. A universal payment of child welfare is very difficult to stand over. Some very wealthy individuals are getting it and rather than reforming that system, we increased the payment. Having imposed the difficult cuts we have now undone those difficult decisions and increased the payment. I am concerned about that.

I am concerned also about replacement rates. The replacement salary some people who are unemployed are getting on social welfare is not an incentive for them to seek work again and because that is a problem in society, we have introduced an additional social welfare payment to encourage them back to work. There is something perverse about that logic and it must be debated.

We continue to see registration fees for third level increase with no serious debate on whether the State can afford a free fees scheme at third level. That must be discussed as well.

I understand the rationale behind the mistreatment of people who are self-employed with the high universal social charge applied to them but self-employed people take a huge risk. Not only do they deserve a reward for that risk but the gains to the economy from them being self-employed in terms of them starting up businesses are disproportionate. They are much greater, and that must be recognised also.

See this speech in context