Section 1 states “the Government have made a decision”. I am not an expert on English grammar, but I would have thought it should read “the Government has made a decision”. I know not much turns on it, but there is standard language for Bills and the drafters do not get these matters wrong.

Nobody has pointed that out to me before. The Bill has been drafted by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel and it is happy with it.

Will the Minister set out the reasons for this section?

This section was added to amend the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2012 to assign the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council statutory responsibility for endorsing the macroeconomic forecast on which the budget and stability programme will be based. In essence, this would be an assignment carried out by the Minister for Finance. Under the new European architecture for the budget, we need to assign responsibility for the determination and endorsement of the macroeconomic forecast, a creature of the Department of Finance, to an independent body. We have determined that it should be the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council. Since we need to have it done in advance of the early budget this year, this was the only available legislative instrument to achieve it.

Does the language used require the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council to endorse the forecast prepared by the Department?

We had a debate in the other House about the language used. In plain English, it should state "endorse or not endorse". I went back to the Parliamentary Counsel about it. Apparently, the phrase “endorse” allows the council to endorse or not to endorse. While it might sound peculiar, in legislative language, one does not include the negative.

I am satisfied with that explanation. Any doubt has been removed by the Minister as will be shown when one looks back at the parliamentary debates to interpret the Bill.

While this Bill is short, it provides a statutory basis for the multi-annual medium-term expenditure framework. I thank Senators for co-operating in the passage of the Bill because it is important to put the framework on a statutory basis before the end of the term and the budgetary round starts.

While it is a short Bill, it relates to important aspects of how the Government will plan public expenditure in the next few years and to the role of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council. These will play a major part in keeping us on track to leave the EU-IMF programme later this year. We will support any legislation that will help us to reach that target.

I thank the Minister for explaining the legislation. He was efficient and prompt with his replies. I am glad that the Bill has had a speedy passage.

This legislation is important in terms of foreign direct investment and in order that the world can see Ireland is conducting its business in an efficient manner. This is long overdue and to be welcomed. I note Senator Thomas Byrne and Fianna Fáil's support for the Bill and how they recognise the positives.