Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to speak to the important summer economic statement, the compilation of which must have been a difficult process for the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, and his Government colleagues. If the Minister has been listening, he will be aware that his reputation for fiscal prudence has taken a hammering in the past 18 months. We have all read the recent reports in national newspapers suggesting he has not been his cheery self recently. It seems that he is beginning to feel the pressure of out-of-control spending. He can shrug if he likes, but that is what realpolitikis like. He is not in control of his job. He should pony up and accept that he is unable to do it. Perhaps he should ask all of us to give him a dig-out.

The first fiasco was the out-of-control spending associated with the national children's hospital, while the second was the €3 billion cost of the national broadband plan. One could not buy such incompetence. If one went into a national school and picked out some junior infants, they would do a better job than the one the Minister is doing in charge of these important infrastructural projects. It is open season for people to plunder. To be honest, it is robbery without violence. The Minister allowed people to enter into these contracts. His whole approach seemed to involve not listening to officials in his Department. To be honest, it beggars belief. As I have said previously, he would not run a sweet shop. It would be a very bad one. He might survive for a week in a second-hand clothes shop because he would get all the stock in for nothing and the staff would be volunteers.

We read this morning that the national broadband plan will require €774 million in capital expenditure between 2019 and 2022. This is an additional €455 million over and above the existing provision in the national development plan. A further €1.58 billion will be required between 2023 and 2027, bringing the total cost to €2.3 billion. One would think we were talking about snuff at a wake, but this is real money. According to the latest data from the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, a further €645 million will be required between 2028 and 2043, which will bring the overall total to €2.977 billion. All of this is compounded by the dire warnings issued by the IFAC which has informed us that the Government's management of the economy is creating risks and dangers that need to be addressed as a matter of urgency. The IFAC has made it clear that spending in the Department of Health alone is threatening the sustainability of the entire economy.

Earlier today Deputy Healy and I raised in the Topical Issues debate the cut in funding for vital respite care summer camp facilities at St. Rita's in Clonmel which is run by the Brothers of Charity. The Brothers of Charity, the operating staff and management at St. Rita's and, above all, the families and service users have been affected by this downright blackguarding. The successful respite care service that they finally brought over the line in 2018 helped 20 families by giving them a modicum of respite. The question of this year's funding came down to the wire in the Chamber earlier this evening. The families who endured this uncertainty and trauma had to stream into my office and those of other politicians before the HSE and the Government finally and grovellingly admitted that it would continue to provide respite care this year. It beggars belief that the Government would treat people with disabilities in such a manner. It dishes out money on contracts and spends it recklessly in other areas, but in this case we are talking about a mere €25,000. It is not an insignificant amount of money, but if there was to be an audit of this expenditure, it would be unbelievable.

On a more technical note, I was interested to read the excellent briefing document supplied by the great team in the Parliamentary Budget Office on tracing Brexit-related Exchequer expenditure in budget 2019.

I salute the team in that office. This note considers the Exchequer impact of Brexit contingency measures, including expenditure on Brexit readiness programmes, customs charges and additional staffing requirements that were unlikely to have occurred in the absence of Brexit. We know that. We have heard the announcements of staff being put in place. I find it alarming to read that in general, it is difficult to determine the overall Exchequer impact of Brexit-related measures with apparent discrepancies across different Government publications on the likely cost of relevant programmes and indeed their allocation in the Revised Estimates Volume. That is a striking statement and one that must be given more attention than it has received to date.

The briefing note goes on to state that it is unclear if expenditure arising from Brexit contingency measures is being met by reallocating money from existing programmes or increases in voted expenditure as a direct response to Brexit. It is very hard to decipher what it is. Perhaps the Minister will enlighten us on that point because in many respects, that is a very serious charge to make. I hope the Minister does respond to it. While the authors of the note do not say it outright, there is a definite sense that transparency is not very clear. In fact, the figures may have been presented in such a way as to make us think that extra funds are being allocated when they have just been taken from existing programmes.

These are important questions that need to be answered before we can provide any kind of meaningful analysis or assessment of the summer economic statement. The Minister, or at least the Minister for Health, found out last September about the runaway train that is the national children's hospital. Of course, we know it is the wrong site. We knew that all the time. It has never been the right site for the sick children who need it. They cannot even access by helicopter, not to mention by road. We then see the lovely wording and terminology used by the Minister. He uses the term "re-profiling". Nothing will be axed or cut. It will all be re-profiled. The Minister must think we all came down in the last shower. There were thunderstorms in parts of the country today but, thankfully, they did not happen everywhere and we did not all come down in that shower. We are the representatives of taxpayers and we want to hold the Minister to account. Flowery language will not allow that to happen.

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