Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

As we saw on Thursday last, the Ministers, Deputies Noonan and Brian Hayes, have an immense task and are two of the hardest working members of the Government. They stated that they have had to do so much fire fighting that some of the basic functions have been overlooked. Some of the statements they were asked to read to the House by their officials on the day-to-day functions of the Department of Finance made sorry reading. The Department, claiming a monopoly on wisdom, refused to do regulatory impact analysis of anything that was in the Finance Bill last week. They refused to refer it to the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council. Even where documents were sent to Teagasc, the food development authority, they refused to ask Teagasc what it thought of the documents. The regulatory impact analysis which the Department refused to do is, according to the Government's website, a tool used for the structured exploration of different options to address particular policy issues. The role of the fiscal council, which they also refused to consult on Thursday, is to independently assess and comment publicly on whether the Government is meeting its stated budgetary targets and objectives.

Teagasc has a major role to play in developing Food Harvest 2020. As a result we got a whole series of tax breaks for aircraft hangars, commercial premises, land dealers, developers, hoteliers, large farmers, research and development, self-catering, a particular form of stamp duty on health care and inadequate measures to deal with the growing tax avoidance industry with no costings and no measures of benefit.

Ireland needs a reformed Department of Finance and we really saw the need for that last week. There must never be a Finance Bill put through the House as the one was last Thursday. I support the reform of the Department by the Minister, Deputy Noonan, and the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes. I know they have been pre-occupied with their work in Cyprus and elsewhere, but the presentation of a finance Bill by the Department as was done here last Thursday does Ireland's financial reputation no good at all. It should stop its monopoly of wisdom pose and carry out regulatory impact analyses and consult the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, which was set up precisely for the purpose of providing advice. There is no monopoly in the Department of Finance and it that showed last week.