OPINION:ON TUESDAY, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan will read the 2009 budget into the Dáil record, the first budget to be brought forward since 1987, writes Elaine Byrne
The theatre of pretence will then commence. This is the most crucial budget in two decades, yet parliamentary procedures dictate that scrutiny will be restricted by a time limit.
The prodigious volume of material relative to the time available prohibits genuine debate. Only a few hours will be taken to discuss amendments to this year's Finance Act, a €50 billion piece of legislation.
As minister for finance last year, Brian Cowen did introduce a degree of reform. All spending and taxation decisions are now announced on the same day rather than the previous practice of piecemeal announcements made over many months. This unified and simplified form of presentation establishes a clear and direct connection between revenue and spending.
For the first time last year, annual output statements were provided by Ministers to accompany their estimates of expenditure. These statements set out what each department is to achieve with the public money granted to them.
However, the extent to which departments provide robust, focused performance targets which contain the cost of the inputs and the proposed outputs is a very different matter. Assessing value for money within public sector spending is complicated and protracted. The work of the Committee on Finance and the Public Service would benefit from outside academic expertise. Our parliamentarians are not professional financial auditors.
Why do we have a Dáil?
The Public Accounts Committee has repeatedly asserted that ongoing parliamentary scrutiny of major expenditure projects is almost non-existent. The annual reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General have raised serious questions about the ability of parliament to examine public procurement practices. (The annual procurement market for the island of Ireland is estimated at €19 billion.)
The strength of the whip system ensures that the legislature will always be limited in exercising its obligation to hold the executive to account.
Bodies such as the Arts Council, Irish Prison Service, Courts Service, National Roads Authority, Health Service Executive and the Office of Public Works are no longer subject to oversight by members of the Dáil through Parliamentary Questions (PQs). Moreover, holding the executive to account has been undermined by the increased exploitation of parliamentarians using PQs as a means of meeting constituency demands.
Most Private Members' Bills never make it past the second stage. Since 1923, fewer than 40 Private Members' Bills have been enacted. In Westminster, a similar parliamentary system, 268 were ratified between 1979 and 1997. The main employer groups, trade unions and voluntary organisations negotiate directly with the government on pay and wage issues, tax and welfare concerns. Our social partnership agreements sidestep formal Dáil approval.
What is the point of extending sitting days and shorter recesses if the Dáil is for the most part a redundant and irrelevant body? When did the Oireachtas Sub-Committee on Dáil Reform last sit?
As for the Seanad! The 1979 referendum on (inadequate) Seanad reform has yet to be implemented. The upper house is 60 years old this year, though the public would be forgiven for being unaware of the occasion.
This has been a defining year in Irish public life. The most popular taoiseach of the modern era tendered his resignation in May amid mounting pressure about his personal finances. Those political parties which won almost 90 per cent of the vote in the previous general election lost the Lisbon referendum in June. Last week the Dáil passed legislation enabling a €400 billion financial guarantee to underpin the Irish banking system. Oh, and we are officially in recession.
Now, more than ever, we need real reform with regard to how our political system operates.
Our parliamentarians behave as local ombudsmen between Government departments and their constituents. The PR electoral system obliges our national parliamentarians to dedicate a disproportionate amount of time to their local constituency work.
Just three weeks after his appointment as minister for finance in Charles Haughey's minority administration, Ray MacSharry introduced a hairshirt budget in March 1987. At that time, Ireland's unemployment stood at 16.9 per cent with a national debt equivalent to 125 per cent of GNP and a large budget deficit.
"People are dispirited because the economy has been on a downward path," MacSharry told the Dáil in his budget speech.
"We must generate a new sense of purpose and a new confidence . . . There is an air of despondency that is unwarranted. We have problems but it is well within our ability to correct them." MacSharry ended with the words "Optimism does matter."
Public trust matters too. We only notice how much we trust when that trust has been betrayed.