It is a sad reality of the political process that most of the Members opposite, who are members of the Government parties, and back bench Government Deputies are reading about the budget in the newspapers. The Fourth Estate seems to be informing the legislators about what is and is not in the budget.

Senator Mark Daly to continue, without interruption. Does he have a question for the Leader?

On coming into power, the Government promised the budgetary process would be different and that it would bring it to committees, tease it out and analyse different possibilities, but we are back to the same system which was in place-----

The Senator must not have attended any Oireachtas joint committee meetings because they discussed-----

Senator Mark Daly to continue, without interruption. Does he have a question for the Leader?

I did not hear the Senator's comments. It seems an affront to the political process that the civil servants who draft the budget and put it before the Ministers are the ones who know what is in it. They are the ones who debate what cuts will be made. The Dáil which will sign off on it today will simply be rubber-stamping it and rushing it through.

I am calling for our budgetary process to begin well in advance and to be out in the open, with which I am sure the Members opposite would not disagree. We should explain to various lobby groups why certain cuts are being made rather than simply ramming them through both Houses and presenting them as a fait accompli to those who are democratically elected. Those who draft the budget, the civil servants, should be held to account in advance of the budget by all the committees. This sham where the budget is simply rammed through by the four horsemen of the apocalypse, who are running the country and who decide on the €2.5 billion cuts or €3 billion depending-----

The Senator is way over time.

The budgetary process should begin well in advance. Not only would Members opposite and Deputies be involved in the process but so, too, would members of the Cabinet who are not one of the four members of what could be the Irish troika-----

A "troika" suggests three.

-----and their budgets would not simply be handed to them on the day.