Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Can anyone tell me how it is possible for any committee with 27 members to work efficiently? Each member has the same mandate. I, as the finance spokesperson of my party, am lucky because I get an early opportunity to contribute and question witnesses at every meeting. However, others, such as Deputy Mathews, who want to make a contribution at meetings, cannot have their voice heard unless they are prepared to wait three or four hours. This is a direct result of the changes to the committee system that the Government introduced.

It is very easy for the Tánaiste to come into the House and talk about the very tough budgets that were introduced in the past. The budgets introduced by the late Brian Lenihan were extremely tough but it has been independently verified that, while they were extremely tough and contained really painful measures that affected all sectors of society, they were progressive in that their impact was felt far more by those who had the capacity to shoulder the burden. By contrast, the approach of the current Government has been to introduce regressive budgets that have placed the burden disproportionately on lower and middle-income groups. My overriding sense is that the Government's agenda, economically and otherwise, is absolutely dominated by Fine Gael. I wish I could say otherwise because I do not see evidence of the Labour Party input I had expected.

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