Results 11,321-11,340 of 29,533 for speaker:Brendan Howlin

Departmental Staff (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: Within the central government area, the Accounting Officer is usually the Secretary General or Civil Service head of a Department or office to whom the Minister for Finance has assigned the responsibility for preparing the annual appropriation account for Votes under his or her aegis. In addition to preparing the appropriation accounts, Accounting Officers are responsible for a range of...

Consultancy Contracts (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: The Government is intent on bringing about real and lasting public service reform and detailed implementation plans are being developed by my Department that will encompass the commitments to public service reform in the programme for Government. Three consultants from Deloitte Ireland and Accenture Ireland have been retained on a contract basis to assist my Department in regard to the...

Consultancy Contracts (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: No. The Deputy is absolutely wrong. I do not know whether he got the same message on the doorsteps as I got during the last general election campaign. For the first time in my political career, I noted that the demand and clamour for fundamental reform was almost as pronounced as the dismay over our economic collapse. People want fundamental institutional reform of politics, public...

Consultancy Contracts (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: The vast majority of public sector workers earn nothing like the salaries to which the Deputy is referring, as he knows. Only a relatively small number of people earn big salaries in the public service. The first thing I did when I became Minister was reduce them considerably, by up to 30% and 40% in some instances. This is important but it is not the most important factor. It does not...

Departmental Expenditure (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: I propose to take Questions Nos. 10, 40 and 47 together. The task of settling the spending Estimates for 2012 will take place after the Government has considered the budget strategy memorandum from the Minister for Finance and a memorandum from me on the results of the ongoing comprehensive review of expenditure and the capital review. The overall target figure for the fiscal adjustment will...

Departmental Expenditure (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: The Deputy will be aware that in the last published quarterly review associated with the memorandum of understanding, indicative figures were published. Those figures stand but there is an understanding that it will be up to the Government to negotiate within the parameters set. The parameter figure is €3.6 billion. The other relevant figure is the deficit target for next year, which is...

Departmental Expenditure (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: Yes.

Departmental Expenditure (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: It is an adjustment, not savings.

Departmental Expenditure (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: The Deputy is very experienced and I put weight to his suggestions. The trajectory we are on, which we must achieve and which we are determined to achieve, is a 3% deficit by 2015. It is an incremental process and the incremental target we have set is 8.6% next year. The indications were that an adjustment of approximately €3.6 billion would achieve this. Given that there are so many...

Departmental Expenditure (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: The analysis coming from the Deputy opposite is invariably the same. I debated this with her in advance of the election. She is great at analysing the failure of somebody else's policy but a bit weak on offering an alternative. The truth is we need to get control of our own fiscal destiny. The only way to do this is to balance our budget. We cannot continue to borrow, as we are, €18...

Departmental Expenditure (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: We are borrowing money; we are borrowing it from the Troika, from the EU and the IMF and the European system of financial supervisors, ESFS, process-----

Departmental Expenditure (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: We are borrowing it at an affordable rate. The markets are unaffordable to us, the Deputy is right. It is disappointing that one rating agency has made a decision but, as one can see from the reaction of the German Chancellor and the Commission they do not agree with it. We must stick to our purpose, which is not to despair or give the counsel of despair or say we will collapse our own...

Departmental Expenditure (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: The Deputy has always been in fantasy land which is a comfortable place to be as it allows one to preach that people do not need to take medicine because the magic doctor has a cure and the rub of the relic will cure all. As to the notion that one can repudiate the debt by deciding to look into one's heart and refuse to pay it-----

Departmental Expenditure (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: -----while at the same time deciding that everyone who is unemployed should go back to work, who would pay the €18 billion we are borrowing? That is the gap that would open up instantly.

Departmental Expenditure (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: Who would pay for the schools, hospitals and gardaí? In Deputy Boyd Barrett's heart of hearts, he knows his proposition is entirely fanciful. The Government has embarked on a path which will lead to a restoration of our finances and which has job creation at its heart. One of the first steps we took was to renegotiate the first memorandum of understanding to ensure we had up to €500...

Departmental Expenditure (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: While the exact dates have yet to be decided, budget 2012 would normally be presented to the Dáil in early December and include budget Estimates for 2012. The Revised Estimates Volume for 2012 would be published the following February and contain more detailed expenditure information on all Votes. The Estimates would then be referred to the relevant Dáil select committees on the same...

Departmental Expenditure (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: As I indicated yesterday, I do not regard the traditional Estimates process as a good one and would like to consider how the process can be reconstructed in a more useful way. The Estimates volume has become a little lost as a result of the practice of publishing it on the same day as the Budget Statement, the reason being that people focus on the fiscal and taxation measures included in the...

Departmental Expenditure (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: They must be practical.

Departmental Expenditure (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: I have sat through many debates on Estimates at committees, mainly as an Opposition Deputy, and they tend to be a little sterile. One normally examines whether a few thousand extra euro is being spent in some area and, as a result, one misses the wood for the trees. I do not know whether we could have a principled debate on Estimates expenditure. Perhaps I am not explaining myself very...

Public Service Staff (14 Jul 2011)

Brendan Howlin: The Government plans to bring about a reduction of between 18,000 and 21,000 in overall public service numbers by 2014, relative to the end of 2010 position, with a further 4,000 reduction in 2015, subject to there being no compulsory redundancies and to the protection of front-line services. As outlined in the programme for Government, this will involve a fundamental change to the way in...