Dan Boyle (Green Party)

I am not adverse to debates in this House on the report of the Commission on Taxation, or on the McCarthy report. Such debates will inform the debate that will eventually take place when a budget is formed on 9 December. I do not think anybody in this House should second guess what is likely to happen on 9 December. The Government is committed to a budget adjustment of €4 billion. The circumstances demand that such an adjustment be made. How that adjustment is made in terms of savings in public expenditure and in additional taxation measures has yet to be determined.

One new taxation measure has already been adopted. I am confident that some of the recommendations of the commission, such as getting rid of tax reliefs for high earners, tails on already extinguished tax reliefs, changes in tax residency laws and so on, will have to be part of the budget on 9 December. Such is the scale of the measures that have to be taken, we can only take what can be seen as an egalitarian approach to what will be the most serious budgetary adjustment in the life of this or any Government over the last 30 years. That is the approach that my party intends to take and on 9 December we will see a budget that will be framed along those lines.

Given the ongoing debate about the purpose of this House, we could have a series of debates on things like today's report of the National Economic and Social Forum on home care packages. Senator Buttimer was on the steering committee of the forum and the chair of that committee, Professor Tony Fahey, stated that the changes of the agency could be made anywhere in public administration. The National Economic and Social Forum has been given a new focus to see how policy is being implemented. In this important area, there was a recognition that the policy is necessary and good, but that it is being badly implemented. There are variances across the country for means testing, care assessment and how different parts of the HSE are implementing the policy. We can see this in many of our public bodies and it would point the way towards some of the changes that need to be happening to achieve real public service reform. Not only should we have a debate on this report, but also on the report of the National Economic and Social Council, as well as reports of the Law Reform Commission. If the clár of this House was predicated on such debates on a weekly basis, we would be more than justifying our existence.