Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

If the Economic Management Council has a function, I presume it is to try to set out the economic priorities of this Government, to look at value for money when it comes to big projects and to decide the broad parameters of raising revenue and collecting taxes. I expect that the four senior members of the Government - the Taoiseach and the other three Ministers - come up with recommendations and argue in favour of them at Cabinet meetings. I imagine that is broadly how it works. I would say that the members of the Economic Management Council get their way most of the time within the broad parameters of economic priorities, tax policy and the big headline issues in terms of expenditure. It is very relevant to ask how the Economic Management Council got it so wrong in this case. The evidence that it got it so wrong has been manifest on the streets in recent weeks as people have reacted to the budget, the broad parameters of which were undoubtedly set out by the Economic Management Council.

I do not doubt - the Taoiseach can correct me if I am wrong - that the Economic Management Council must have discussed the response to the unprecedented popular protest after the budget, particularly on the issue of water charges. The proposals announced by the Minister, Deputy Kelly, were drawn up in response to the unprecedented outrage of the people of this country who told the Government that it got this wrong, that it was not listening to them, that it did not understand their needs and priorities and that they fundamentally disagreed with it on the issue of water charges and the whole Irish Water project. It is very relevant to ask how the Economic Management Council got it so wrong. Does it not prove that it is a dysfunctional entity? It is not the way to go about framing policy and making decisions on the key economic issues facing the people of this country. That is the lesson. There is much speculation about how many people will be on the streets tomorrow. I can tell the Taoiseach that it is going to be massive. Any illusion he may have had that-----

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