Members will be familiar with and in many cases will have initiated leaflet drops, press statements, information leaflets and literature to promote themselves and their parties throughout the country. To see a collection of this material is very worthwhile and interesting and all sorts of documents and facts emerge from it. The most recent document, Budget 2001, produced as an information update from the Department of Finance in January 2001, is the mother of all propaganda documents.
Adjournment Debate. - Departmental Expenditure.
It is an excellent document.
It is an abuse of privilege by this Government. It blatantly promotes the achievements of this Government and, in many instances, draws false and misleading comparisons with previous Administrations. The banner headline in this publication declares: "We have delivered on our promises". Since when did the Department of Finance get into the business of making promises to anybody and how could it deliver on them? This is an unprecedented publication. The subtitle of the Department of Finance is used to give credibility to a flawed propaganda publication. This document, prepared and funded by the Department of Finance, obviously at the discretion of their political masters, is a blatant abuse of taxpayers' money and a blatant attempt to portray the information contained in it as impartial, unbiased and accurate.
I understand that the design, printing and layout costs of this publication are about £6,000, paid to outside organisations. There are further costs to consider, the internal costs such as Civil Service working time, assembling of material for this publication, photographic and other material from other Departments. These costs, if factored in, run to further thousands of pounds. It is a terrible abuse of privilege by this Government that civil servants should be directed to provide such outrageous material and I am sure it is a major embarrassment to many of them to be told to write this kind of stuff. The document contains 12 photographs of Ministers or Ministers of State, the league table of which runs as follows: Taoiseach two, Tánaiste two, Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, two, Ministers Walsh, O'Rourke, Dempsey and McDaid, one each and Ministers of State Hanafin and Ryan, one each.
I did not make up the list.
Unfortunately, the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Cullen, who was wheeled in here to answer on this matter, does not even get his photograph in the publication. Whether that was because he was not photogenic or he was not in a marginal constituency, I am not too sure.
We are all in marginal constituencies.
This is where I come to the inaccuracies. On page seven, under the heading "Just Look at our Record", the document refers to personal allowances – incidentally I thought personal allowances were abolished and that we now had tax credits – and it notes the recent changes in this area comparing it to the record of the Rainbow Coalition. I find it absolutely disgusting that the conclusion drawn is that the increases of personal allowances introduced by the current Government to date are almost five times greater than those introduced by the previous Government. That is blatantly untrue and it is shameful that such untruths should appear in a document masquerading as a publication from the Department of Finance. The £550 pounds increase by the Rainbow Coalition, allowable at the marginal rate which for many was 48%, was in fact worth £264. The £2,600 increase by this Government is worth £520 as a tax credit and even a primary school student would know that £520 is not almost five times £264, in fact, it is even less than twice that amount.
The Deputy is being disingenuous.
Likewise, the comparison of PAYE allowances, £800 against £2,000, when converted to tax credits show a distinct similarity at £384 and £400. This is completely at variance with the message in this biased document which implies a huge increase in these allowances and the Minister of State should be ashamed of it. This document has been distributed to all second level schools at the taxpayers' expense and I question the provisional legislation to allow a database, held in the Department of Education and Science, to be available for political electioneering. Will this spending be included in declared election expenses and, if not, why not? This document represents yet another chapter in the saga of the abuse of power, the sleaze and the corruption which seem to be endemic in this Government.
The Deputy is scraping the bottom of the barrel and embarrassing his colleagues.
It demonstrates the actions of an Administration which is so obsessed with a return to power after the next general election that it will go to any lengths, including the abuse of taxpayers' money, to achieve its goal.
The Minister for Finance has asked me to thank Deputy McGrath for this opportunity to talk about the budget 2001 newspaper.
The Minister for Finance is very proud of the publication, which is a very polished production, and the people who read the newspaper will find it easy to read and informative. The Minister considers it important that information on each year's budget be distributed to as wide an audience as possible so that people are aware of the changes to their personal finances. There were 20,000 copies of the newspaper printed, the majority of which were circulated to schools. For the Deputy's information, people who have not received a copy of the newspaper can access it on the Department of Finance website at www.finance.gov. The total cost of production, Deputy McGrath having been reasonably accurate is £6,412.50.
That does not include the time.
The articles in Budget 2001 were produced and co-ordinated by the press office in the Department of Finance and also included articles from other Government Ministers and Departments. There are articles on all of the main sections of the budget, including a detailed piece on social welfare entitlements. There are articles on increases in spending for health, additional money for the national drugs strategy. The newspaper also has easy to read pie charts showing how the Government will raise the tax revenue next year and showing how it will be spent. There are also articles in relation to improvements in the transport, tourism, sport and housing areas and also on the positive changes for children. There were no outside consultants involved in sourcing or producing copy or content for the newspaper and printing was put out to tender by the Department of Finance. The newspaper was distributed by the press office in line with the manner in which all other information leaflets pertaining to the budget are distributed. It was sent to the principals of the 751 second level schools in Ireland for circulation to their students.
It is a party political rag.
Not at all, it is an excellent publication. The newspaper's circulation to students is a good thing to which we would all subscribe.
It is an abuse of the database.
The distribution list for this is supplied by the Department of Education and Science and the postage costs of this was approximately £863.
That is very generous.
In addition copies were sent to all Departments with 1,500 copies being sent to departmental press offices, 2,000 copies to the Fianna Fáil press office and 1,000 copies to the Progressive Democrats press office. Approximately 500 copies were also sent to all national and local media organisations.
From which office did the Minister of State get his copy?
The number of copies circulated to all officers of my Department was 600. Copies are available on request from the Department of Finance by emailing minister@finance.irlgov.ie. The Minister considers the cost of publishing the newspaper to compare very favourably with similar publications over the last few years.
What about errors? The Minister of State should address the errors.
This year's costs are also considerably less than previous years. The Minister for Finance is very happy with the very positive response and considers the publication to be an effective budget information document, both in terms of the presentation of the volume of financial data and in terms of production costs efficiency.
The Dáil adjourned at 9.10 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 11 April 2001.