Fergal Browne (Fine Gael)

This book should be renamed "Aspirations" as opposed to "Estimates" because it is purely aspirational. The Government seems to be in turmoil. The Tánaiste said public spending was out of control. A few days later she praised the Minister for Finance as the best ever. I cannot reconcile these two comments.

We could become bogged down in smaller projects such as the first-time buyer's grant, which is what Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats want us to do. However, the main issue is public sector pay, to which half the expenditure relates. A report published today shows that if we continue as we are, we will by next year be 14% more expensive in terms of wages than the European standard, making us less competitive, which will not be good for the economy. Recently, over 4,000 personnel who had not been sanctioned were employed by health boards. We are, therefore, seeing wastage of money.

One area that concerns me is the cut-back in consultants' reports. I might be asked the reason. The Jeanie Johnston project in Tralee is a case where proper consultants were not engaged. It went way over budget and we had a fiasco. It would be easy to cut back on consultancies and consultants' reports across every Department, including the Taoiseach's, but it might come back to haunt us. I hope it is done in a good manner.

Senator Fitzgerald mentioned the costing of manifestos before the last general election. Fine Gael produced a manifesto which was costed by the Department of Finance. However, the so-called independence of the Department of Finance has been questioned. I certainly would not trust it as far as I could throw it. It costed all the political parties' manifestos, including that of the Labour Party, as far as I am aware. Now it has emerged that the figures it gave us, on which we based our manifesto, are false. There are serious questions to answer. The Secretary General of the Department of Finance should be brought before the House to answer questions. It is not good enough. I understood the Civil Service was independent. It obviously is not and certainly cannot be depended upon.