Results 16,421-16,440 of 29,533 for speaker:Brendan Howlin
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: No.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: We are thinking ourselves into a European semester as well and we must have regard to the new European budgetary requirements. It will be possible for us to alter limits by formal Government decision subsequently. It will be a snapshot in time, in tandem with the obligations to maintain the fiscal disciplines set under the European treaties.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: That is all anything can be. The hands of Government cannot be tied. If the Government in 2007 was looking at a three-year horizon, it would have been a very different horizon to view by the end of 2008. There has to be flexibility to be able to alter course to meet changed circumstances and that is understood.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: By and large, the idea is to give as much certainty as possible but it cannot be locked in.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: We are presenting now a multi-annual budget twice a year. We are giving the horizon in April and then just before the budget itself, pre-October, we will present the multi-annual framework for the next three years. This is a twice-annual reporting. By and large, that should, with fiscal discipline and more settled times, be a horizon that is replicated in the next horizon with some sense...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: Yes.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: Yes; on a multi-annual basis.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: Yes.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: We published the SPU in April this year but we have taken no regard for what decisions will be made in the October budget, clearly. The horizons are set but the specific details will be altered and there will be a new pre-budget set of documentation published to set the new horizons before the budget.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: I think they are more than statements of intent but they are not legally binding.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: Is the Deputy saying that floors and ceilings become confused?
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: No. As the Deputy rightly says, the Dáil is gaining. I do not see how it could lose anything. Oversight as it was done over the last 20 years was not particularly strong. As Deputy Fleming has repeatedly and strongly made the case, it was post-fact consideration of expenditure. The money was spent. The construction of a budget each year was entirely an Executive function. One...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: Yes. The provision operationalises the management component of the so-called six pack, which consists of five directives and one regulation introducing what the Europeans call the expenditure benchmark. It is being rolled out across the European Union.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: Largely, that is it. There are amendments I am introducing on behalf of the Minister for Finance in relation to the designation of the fiscal council. We will be dealing with that shortly.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: I am not aware of anything else of substance that is fundamentally different from the existing legislation.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: Excellent.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: I will consider that and revert to the Deputy.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: It is no great harm to be on the back foot if one is changing things. One must then explain. We require a Department to explain where there is a substantial change. It is part of the normal annual cycle that an explanation is required. It is a good accounting procedure.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: That has to be explained to people.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (26 Jun 2013)
Brendan Howlin: There are procedures about legislation. One cannot simply have evolving legislation onto which one appends provisions every year.