Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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300. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will introduce equality proofing measures in the budget, as requested by the Equality Budgeting Campaign (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30529/15]

Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent)
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304. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will support the principle of equality proofing measures (details supplied) in the next budget; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30619/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 300 and 304 together.

The issue of equality proofing the budget and the proposal for an independent budget office are not the same, although there is an element of overlap.

Dealing with the latter first, my Department is working with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on proposals to establish an independent budget office. The intention is to prepare heads of a bill, bring these to Government and then commence pre-legislative scrutiny. I hope to reach the pre-legislative scrutiny stage by the end of this year.

As the primary purpose of the independent budget office is to assist opposition parties with costing of budgetary proposals, analysing the economic impact of budgetary packages and advising on the impact of the fiscal rules, it is likely and appropriate that the pre-legislative scrutiny should be a lengthy process. It is here that the campaign for equality budgeting and this proposal overlap. If there is demand or support for the equality impact of budgetary proposals and packages being put to the independent budget office to be considered, then it can be incorporated in the Bill.

I want to make it clear that budgetary proposals and legislation being put to the Dáil by the Government will not be a matter for the new office.

Under the Constitution, budgetary allocation is a fundamental responsibility of the Dáil and its individual members and the Government is responsible to Dáil Éireann. It follows that it is up to Dáil Éireann to consider the Government's budgetary proposals and legislation and decide upon them. The extent to which it wants to take equality impacts into account is a matter for it to decide. However, Government's budgetary proposals are presented to the Dáil first and this will continue to be the case.

Having said all of the above, I want to assure the Deputies that Government takes equality very seriously. This starts with the fact that Cabinet procedures require a whole range of impacts to be covered in every decision proposed to Government. This ensures that the impact of policy proposals on gender equality, rural communities, North-South/East-West Relations, employment, persons experiencing or at risk of poverty or social exclusion, people with disabilities and industry costs are taken into account.

The Department of Finance carries out distributional analyses of budgetary options using the Economic and Social Research Institute's (ESRI) Simulating Welfare and Income Tax Changes (SWITCH) model. For Budget 2015, the Department produced analysis of the distributional impact of tax measures. These are contained in the Tax Strategy Group papers and inform the budgetary decision process.  These papers are subsequently made public after the Budget and are available here .  Further distributional analyses are carried out by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department of Social Protection including distributional analysis of Budget measures and social welfare changes. Indeed, for this year's budget, it is also planned that the Departments of Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Social Protection will conduct a social impact assessment of the main tax and welfare measures contained in the final Budget package.

Finally, the Budget book contains illustrative examples of the impact of taxation changes on different income earners.  Overall, the analysis and transparency of the decision making process has been undergoing constant improvement over recent years and I would envisage this continuing.