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

The Taoiseach said the EMC was established for a specific reason and that it allowed for very regular contact. This seems a very poor reason for the establishment of the EMC. The Taoiseach can have this regular contact with the Tánaiste whenever he wants to. Some two thirds of the measures needed to reach the 3% deficit target had been taken by the previous Government before the EMC was established. The rationale for it has never been fully articulated, given its quasi-constitutional status. Although the Taoiseach would have voted against all the budgetary measures taken by the previous Government, he now takes credit for them and their contribution to getting the deficit below 3%. The four-year plan that the former Minister for Finance, the late Brian Lenihan, produced was done without any EMC. The full Cabinet participated in it without any emergency fiscal council. The funding arrangement with the troika, which provided the funding for three years of the plan, was done and dusted before any EMC had been established. The Taoiseach would agree with these facts.

It is difficult to ascertain the role of the EMC and the Cabinet in the episode detailed in Pat Leahy's book, when the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, had proposed to burn the bondholders. We were all sitting here in the Dáil when the Minister for Finance arrived in 20 minutes late because he had received a phone call from the then Governor of the European Central Bank, Mr. Trichet, who had told the Minister that if he tried to burn any bondholders, a bomb would go off, not in Brussels but in Dublin.

The Minister had to back down, it seems, unilaterally and on an individual and solo basis. He might have told the Taoiseach or whatever but it seems quite a number of Ministers who were sitting in the House waiting were taken by surprise that his statement on that occasion did not include any reference to the burning of bondholders. It perhaps exposed the falsehoods that were perpetrated before the election that the bondholders would be burned and they were not but, again, there has never been any accountability about that.

Equally, the assertion has been made that the EMC is about keeping issues under control and avoiding leaks, as was pointed out in Mr. Leahy's book. It is extraordinary that €500 million in expenditure was approved by the council for the installation of water meters with no accountability to the House in any shape or form. The House was told that because Irish Water was a semi-State entity, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government did not have to answer questions and, therefore, we can find out nothing about the awarding of the contracts for the installation of meters because that is all considered to be confidential for alleged commercial reasons. It is an extraordinary fact that the central role of the EMC in the water meter story has been to keep it all hidden from public view. As a result of the mechanisms adopted, such as using NTMA money as a borrowing instrument, which was approved by the council with no questions allowed in the House, no questions have been answered in respect of any aspect of that. One is led to the conclusion that the role of the council is to ram through measures about which people, even within the Cabinet, might ask awkward questions. They did not get the opportunity to do so. We are aware of the battle that ensued in respect of water services subsequently. There were approximately 13 U-turns with legislation rammed through the House in 24 hours twice to deal with the issue. By any yardstick or objective assessment, the EMC did not cover itself in glory on that issue, notwithstanding the fact that its role has been over hyped by a Government that was focused on spin rather than reality

The Taoiseach has stated the spring statement will not be a budgetary statement and further stated, "It is an opportunity to engage ourselves in where the country is heading". I do not know what that means.

See this speech in context