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

The reason I put the questions in that form was that I was amused by the Minister of State, Deputy Alex White, who on "The Week in Politics" programme articulated the view that there would be changes to the status of the Economic Management Council, that it would be the subject matter of a review and that he was not entirely happy with its position within Cabinet. Prior to becoming Tánaiste, Deputy Burton was very critical of the Economic Management Council and the degree to which it kept other Cabinet members offside and out of the loop in terms of decision-making and budgetary issues.

A number of articles have been written about the constitutionality of the Economic Management Council in that many key decisions are now taken by that council. By the time they get to Cabinet, they are faits accomplis. It is a very dangerous situation where the majority of the Cabinet is essentially excluded from the detailed decision-making required on a range of issues.

I would like to illustrate one example, the Irish Water debacle - the establishment of Irish Water, the decision to spend €500 million on water meters and close to €200 million on the establishment of the utility itself. The Economic Management Council signed off on that and the result has been one of the worst examples of a lack of fundamental accountability to the Cabinet, the Oireachtas and to the people of Ireland. It was a scandalous waste of money. We now have meters in the ground that will never be used. They are pointless in so far as we will have a flat charge for a number of years, which will probably continue.

The danger and incompetence of the Economic Management Council, EMC, were demonstrated by its railroading through and rubberstamping of the expenditure on water meters and Irish Water, without proper consultation with its Cabinet colleagues or this House. As we remember this time last year, or close to it, the Bill was railroaded through the House in two to three hours with no adequate debate. It was guillotined. Since then the Government has made 12 or 13 U-turns on the water charges regime. If the Taoiseach wants an illustration of how the EMC is ineffective and, worse, results in an appalling lack of accountability, the water debacle is one.

There are many more. The dishonest budget last year on health, for example, was the child of the EMC. It did the work on the budget and presented it to Cabinet. That was presented in the House and we now know those figures were dishonest and false because we see the largest health supplementary estimate ever asked for in this House. The books were cooked. The EMC and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform must have known this because as soon as the budget was published, the then Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, said they were not his figures and they belonged to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, who is a key member of the EMC. It is the first budget I have seen that took me two months to work out whether the figures were right or wrong. The figures presented to the Oireachtas proved to be hopelessly erroneous. Under the freedom of information legislation, we then learned that the Health Service Executive, HSE, had written extensively to the then Minister, pointing out that patient safety would be compromised if the estimate went through. The discretionary medical card debacle arose from that. The length of and waiting time on waiting lists have gone dramatically wrong, all because of the budgetary work of the EMC.

There is a fundamental lack of constitutionality that Ministers are excluded from its work and four people make key decisions with officials who are not elected. A Cabinet is elected and appointed by this House for a specific purpose under the Constitution, and each Minister receives a seal of office on that basis. The Government has formalised an entity that has no constitutional basis or status, which has resulted in a lack of accountability in our democratic and parliamentary framework. I have instanced two cases to illustrate that. There are many more. Will the Taoiseach comment on that? Does he accept that the EMC got it particularly wrong in respect of Irish Water? Does he now accept that the €500 million to be spent on water meters represents a scandalous waste of money because there is no use to be made of them? Most of them are in the ground and will not be used.

I am amazed this has got so little attention. No one knows anything about the signing off of that €500 million which was allegedly off balance sheet because it came from the strategic investment fund. It did not seem to matter that it should go before the Oireachtas or be scrutinised in advance, or that a cost-benefit analysis be undertaken and shared with Members of this House. That is a lot of money spent on meters which because of the Government's latest U-turn will not be used. At some stage we need accountability from the Government on that.

The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy White, said he was unhappy with the Economic Management Council, that he understood it would be subject to review and that there would be changes to its status before the lifetime of this Government ended. Could the Taoiseach confirm if that is the case and does he have plans to change the status of the Economic Management Council?

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