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

The underfunded budgets were not acknowledged by Ministers before the election.  This is a matter which should be taken up by a reformed budget oversight committee when it is established through the Dáil reform process. This applies in particular to the Department of Health. We were informed by officials that the underlying overrun by the end of February was already €60 million. We pointed this out before the election and we were not told the truth about it during the election campaign. There is also the wider issue of the fiscal treaty and its implications for how that is going to be dealt with in 2016. If any one thing is coming across as being of great seriousness, it is the crisis that is facing the health situation over the next 12 months - not over the next two years but over the next 12 months - in terms of the adequacy of funding that is being made available and earmarked for it.

Our approach to the negotiations has been to demonstrate our good faith.  There has been no constant briefing, leaks or spin. There have been no manoeuvrings or attempts to deny the right of others to act in accordance with their mandates. The negotiations have been constructive but not conclusive so far.  However, I believe we are close to a position where Deputies will be in a position to state what government option they will assist and support.

The primary focus is on the option of what would be a minority Government. It is important to address some of the comments which have been made about how a minority Government might work. The past approach to government formation in Ireland is by no stretch the dominant model in successful democracies.  In fact, the insistence that we hear from some that government can only be successful if it is assured that it can win every vote and get its way on every issue is nonsense. The casual and repetitive demand of commentators, many of whom completely failed to understand the mood of the public before the election campaign, that the only good government is a majority government simply does not stand up to scrutiny. We have just had five years of a Government which had the strongest majority in our history and only became unstable when it came to arguing over delaying the election by a few months.

Independent studies show that up to a third of governments in Europe since 1945 have had minority support in parliament.  They have also shown that these governments have shown more respect for consultation in policy formation, worked with real parliamentary oversight of all stages of the budget process and can encourage more fiscally responsible policies than many majority governments. Some countries with the highest standards of governance in the world regularly have minority governments which were enabled to be formed by opposition parties.  The key to this is that their parliaments assume a more professional and accountable role.

  Everything does not rise or fall on whether there is an all-powerful Executive. It is my intention to avoid the type of partisan comments which defined many of the contributions when we last discussed this matter.

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