Darragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

He must have done something wrong in a previous life.

I and my party support the Bill. The Minister of State spoke about openness and transparency in the budgetary framework. All of us agree this needs to happen and much more needs to be done, particularly with regard to an enhanced role for evidence-based policy making. In this House, and in the other House under the previous Government, I have called for a more open budgetary preparation process. We should have a series of focused debates in preparation for a budget. When a Government produces a budget, the Opposition produces an alternative budget and each side disagrees with what is in the other's budget. Having such a series of debates without votes in the Dáil and Seanad would allow the Houses seek alternatives to measures such as the property tax or the pensions levy. I have asked the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, for a debate on how to better spend our resources on child benefit.

We can be helpful in this regard and I speak in a non-partisan manner. We can put forward good ideas which the Minister of State, the Minister and the Department could take on board well in advance of the budget so we do not have four or five weeks of kite-flying prior to it. In fairness this did not happen last year to the same degree as it did the previous year. It would allow the Government to seek buy-in from the Opposition, and put it up to the Opposition to come up with real costed alternatives and take on board such suggestions. Rather than having our normal run-of-the-mill economic debates, I call on the Minister of State to speak to his senior colleague about setting down a series of focused debates without votes where parties and Independent Members can bring forward alternatives or potential solutions in certain areas of expenditure in tax.

We all acknowledge there was in the past an urgent need for additional spending in key areas, and on capital spending in particular, much of which has been criticised from time to time. An element of the criticism with which I agree is that public expenditure grew far too much between 2000 and 2007, but not all of this money was wasted. All of us would agree that particularly in the public service and Civil Service, salaries needed to catch up. I make no apology for the capital investment also, particularly after fixed-term and fixed-price contracts were introduced which meant we could not overspend. I agree with the Minister of State the Bill will assist in this because we will be able to track it. When we consider the expenditure between 2000 and 2007, if this mechanism had been in place alarm bells would have gone off that too much was being spent.

I caution against the Government's approach on simple and easy decisions to cut capital programmes in recent years. The Government is over-compensating in this area so it will not have to reduce day-to-day expenditure. IMF reports have stated the cuts in capital expenditure have been too severe. Yesterday I listened to the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, speak to Dublin Chamber of Commerce about seeking further investment in capital projects which would create the famous shovel-ready type projects and jobs. I fully support such measures. The Government will have a job to do this, but the real surgery needs to happen in current day-to-day expenditure because savings on capital expenditure are only made for one year.

As part of this all projects need a full and rigorous cost-benefit analysis. I will draw the attention of the Minister of State to one particular project. With regard to capital expenditure we must ensure proper cost-benefit analysis is done through local authorities before the green light is given. We have had some disastrous examples, such as the Limerick main drainage scheme which was a €12 million project that ran over budget and cost almost €90 million. The Committee of Public Accounts could not fully investigate it because local authorities are not answerable to it. The Government should consider this. The local government auditor cannot do the job as well as the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Comptroller and Auditor General should be allowed audit individual local authorities and not just the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government.

With regard to cost benefit analysis. I wish to discuss a project in the Government's capital programme, which is the greater Dublin drainage scheme. A site has been selected, and I will not get into the nuts and bolts of it, but no cost benefit analysis has been done. A 200 page prospectus was issued on the greater Dublin drainage scheme-----