Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

However, on the first round of the Committee Stage debate we embarked upon this interesting amendment that Senator Ryan put to the House. It is proper that if a Department is embarking on a spending programme the Department of Finance should play a part. If the Department of Education and Science seeks to spend a certain amount of money it is right that, at some point, the Department of Finance must consider the purse strings. We can understand the Department of Finance exerting a degree of control over spending by Departments and, although we often complain about it, it is an important part of administration.

Problems arise where this control relates not to Departments, but to officeholders. The fact remains, the words "with the consent of the Minister for Finance" bring into question the roles of Minister for Finance and Taoiseach. In my Second Stage contribution I was critical of the fact that the Taoiseach can produce committees at will, ad hoc, long-term, medium-term committees and so on. This power is clearly given to him in the section to which I referred on Second Stage. The Taoiseach has the power to do all this without recourse to anyone. Significant powers are already given to the Taoiseach in the Bill as part of his job of making the partnership process work as leader of his Department. The subordinate role that the Taoiseach could find himself in following the passage of this Bill, should a Minister for Finance refuse to consent to a spending programme, would leave us in a constitutionally dangerous situation. It is appropriate that, at the very least, we debate it in this House. It could be argued that this entire Bill should be with the Department of Finance. At least there would then be clear lines of control.