Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I echo Senator Byrne's sentiments of our debt to the Leader for organising this debate and the instant appearance here of the Minister of State. He is always very helpful to this House and his appearance here at short notice is a startling illustration of this.

Part of the reform agenda must be that we remain vigilant of our public finances. Post exit the bailout we must plan our affairs to ensure we do not end up in difficulties again. Had there been time to do so I would have located my dog-eared copy of John Bruton's publication, A Better Way to Plan the Nation's Finances, which he wrote during a period of crisis when he was attempting to get our finances in order. In regard to inviting people to the Seanad to address us, this issue was tackled in the most interesting reforms proposed by him at that time.

As stated by Senator Byrne, we need effective measures of accountability. While up to now accountability has been mostly good in that not much has been stolen from the Exchequer, there is always concern in regard to whether money is being spent in the most efficient manner possible. While the Comptroller and Auditor General does tremendous work in this area, issues are always identified after the event. Perhaps the Oireachtas could be alerted by way of an early warning system from the Comptroller and Auditor General of areas in respect of which things are starting to go wrong. The Committee of Public Accounts has been chaired by many distinguished people in recent years. I understand it was chaired for some time by Deputy Noonan, the current Minister for Finance. Deputy John McGuinness is not behind the door in dealing with issues. While that committee also provides an extremely valuable public service, it might be better if we were not made aware of issues post event.

Former President Carter attempted to introduce programmed budgeting which included more reviews, appraisals and analyses. The process lasted for only a couple of years. The obstacles it encountered were those faced by current bureaucracies, namely, people do not like having their outputs questioned, in particular by politicians. There was also concern that the additional layer of analysts would add to the budget. Given most countries now have debt-GDP levels which are unacceptable, we need to ensure value for money. Traditionally, much of the attention in terms of public finances was on the taxation side, with little attention on asking the fundamental questions we now have to ask, including whether the health service or chunks of it makes anybody any healthier. There is also a problem in the context of Departments acting as independent republics and preventing the Department of Finance having a say in how they are doing. Newspapers, rather than report on what a Department is spending money on, frequently report X Minister as being a really good Minister because he gets more money from the Department of Finance for his Department. Traditional speeches on the opening up a new bridge and so on would be to the effect that a particular Government spent more on bridges than did all other Governments combined. However, what is never considered is whether the target of that Government in terms of the construction of more bridges and roads than any previous Government was a pointless exercise. We need to examine our bureaucracy and to scrutinise how allocations are made. I wonder if the case can be made for a government economic service to address these issues, including whether Departments should be allowed to operate as independent republics, such that when all the Estimates are totalled the Department of Finance is on budget day harassed in terms of increases in taxes or borrowings to finance them.

The Bill provides for spend of astonishing amounts of money, including €740 million under Vote 32. On days when there is little legislation before the Seanad, we could have a discussion on particular items related to this spend, at which time we might come up with ideas that would be useful to the Minister of State in the context of his reporting back to the Department of Finance. The amounts being provided in terms of magnitude are astonishing. It was once said that to divert attention in capital appraisal from the big items one should include an item on the bicycle shed, which item would be the focus of discussion by everybody while millions of expenditure went through on the nod. I am sure that is not a model we would want to apply in this Parliament.

In the recent past, we have had, necessarily, to reduce capital expenditure. It was pointed out by an bord snip nua that because of what happened in the past number of years GDP in 2014 will be approximately 40% less than projected. Therefore, one should not invest in a capital programme for GDP that will be lower than anticipated. More importantly, this allows us to put in place criteria, which I believe should be published in advance, in regard to capital investments, including any alternatives. This will allow us to consider which projects are worthwhile. We now have an opportunity to put capital investment appraisal on a new footing at breathing space from the actual expenditures.

I appreciate the short notice at which the Minister of State has come to the House to deal with this important legislation. In the context of the future role of the Seanad, we could, perhaps, as stated by Senator Byrne, make this a precedent and have discussions here on the large amounts of money provided for in this legislation. We are happy to assist the Minister in any way we can in ensuring value for money is achieved. I again thank the Minister of State for coming here at short notice and the Leader for allowing this debate.