Budget day farce is found only here and in Britain

WHEN Ruairi Quinn rises in the Dail this afternoon, full of self-congratulation, having punched the air for the cameras and ducked questions about his petulance with Dick Spring, pay a little attention to the person sitting on his left.

Watch at first the latter's sweet smile of apparent contentment, then wait for a few sighs and the descent of boredom and distraction. Wonder what he is thinking.

Could it be that Ruairi's Dail companion, on Ruairi's day of days, is thinking that the whole exercise is a charade; that this is a silly way to manage the nation's finances; that the pomp and secrecy of budget days is a piece of archaic nonsense; that the set piece of budget formulation and approval is a travesty of parliamentary authority; that debate by word-processed script is a sham?

Unlikely, you might think, especially as the Dail companion will be none other than the Taoiseach, John Bruton who, if he held such views, would be in a position to end that "charade". Anyway, our parliamentary leader would hardly harbour such irreverent views of one of the great ceremonial set-pieces of our parliamentary life. Not so.

A little over two years before he became Taoiseach, John Bruton delivered a critique of the budget ritual. It was his speech in the budget debate of 1992, delivered on the morning of Thursday, January 30th. He may like to ponder on what he said then, while Ruairi drones on self-importantly for the prescribed ninety minutes.

"We would not be able to have the sort of misleading pre-publicity about the budget we have had over the last number of months if we had the system of budget preparation which is used in other European countries. There the budget is prepared on draft form, perhaps in the month of September, prior to its introduction.

"It is discussed in a committee of parliament and members who disagree with the budgetary priorities, while they may have to accept the overall financial limits, have the freedom to move money from, say, health to education or from one tax form to another.

"The parliament in virtually every other European democracy, with the exception of Britain, is taken into the confidence of the government before the budget is absolutely finalised and members of parliament have an opportunity to make and input to the budget.

"We ... maintain this totally unnecessary system of budget secrecy, a myth which builds up budget day as something significant. In fact budget day is hardly significant at all. It is the day when the icing on the cake is slightly altered but, not the day on which the cake is baked. The cake, was baked when the Estimates were settled two to three months ago ...

"We in this House have not been allowed to play any part [in the formulation of the budget]. That is bad for democracy and bad for the dignity of this House which is not allowed to play a constructive role in budget-making.

"If there is cynicism of politicians, it is not just because of scandals, suggestions of phone tappings and suggestion of illicit meetings in private homes about financial matters which are properly public business. It is because the basic financial business of the country is not done in a democratic way which takes account of the fact that each of us here is elected to do a job...

"This debate ... will be the biggest waste of parliamentary time this year, a total and complete waste of time... Not a single word said on either side of the House will alter a single comma or full stop in the minister's budget statement. It is all fixed and agreed. The debate simply gives members an opportunity to let off steam...

"We have an entirely empty press gallery. The reason is that I supplied my prepared script in advance to the journalists ... They [the journalists] see no reason to come here to listen to what I am saying. That is a complete farce...

"Virtually all members, particularly party leaders, who feel a certain august responsibility to have prepared remarks delivered within a certain `gravitas' never deliver spontaneous remarks. Almost invariably they have scripted remarks which bear no relationship whatever to anything anyone else says either before or after them.

"We have a completely word-processed debate. We might as well not meet in this House because everything is already written somewhere else. We could supply the whole lot to the journalists and not meet at all.

"We must bear in mind that every day the Dail meets it costs in the region of £10,000 in terms of extra expenses. This budget debate will last four or five days and will cost the taxpayer about £40,000 over and above the normal costs of running parliament.

"One hundred and sixty-six of us [TDs] decide how the money that belongs to 3.5 million people will be spent. There is no tennis club, no Gaelic football club, no business that would decide on the spending of money in the way this House decides.

"In the most minor organisation there would be a discussion, before the money was spent, about the priorities, what was the most important thing this year - for example, should it be to put down new tennis courts, to build an addition to the pavilion, or whatever the argument might be about, but it would be discussed well before the money was spent by everybody in the club.

"What happens in this House? We are not taken into account. One member comes in and tells us what will happen. We then debate it sale in the knowledge that nothing we say will make the slightest difference.

"There is no other organisation here that would conduct its business in that manner. Yet this, the most important organisation here, spending the largest sum of money of any organisation in the country, sets its budget in a completely ridiculous way.

SO, John, ponder today, while Ruairi reads from his prepared word-processed script, whether being Taoiseach is not also "a total and complete waste of time".

After all, if as Taoiseach you can do nothing at all about the pre-publicity (almost nothing in the Budget will not have been leaked in advance), about the absence of any parliamentary input to the Budget, about the "total and complete waste of [parliamentary] time given over to the Budget debate which will not change a comma or full stop", about a further £40,000 going down the drain, about running the nation's finances that would seem ridiculous in a tennis club, what is the point of being Taoiseach?

And tomorrow, when you too rise to deliver your own pre-prepared, word-processed script to a largely empty Dail and a deserted press gallery, will there be any part of your brain which will wonder what it is all about?