Debate contribution: Northern Ireland Fiscal Council Bill: Final Stage

Debate contribution by Mr John O'Dowd on 15 June 2026.

MLA

Mr John O'Dowd

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

15 June 2026

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Northern Ireland Fiscal Council Bill: Final Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5614348

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I think that you are definitely stretching it. To set up the Fiscal Council or any board, body or structure without any defined role would be utter nonsense. The defined role of the Fiscal Council is to provide the two pieces of work that you have set out. That is its defined role. Anything that it does after that is as a result of the independent nature of the Fiscal Council. I think that it would have been very foolish. We modelled our Fiscal Council on international best practice. That was acknowledged by the current chair of the Fiscal Council, and we learnt from his experience of these matters. The Fiscal Council was set up in such a way that it mirrored other fiscal councils, and that is its core function. You cannot seek independence for the body and then say, "By the way, when I said 'independent', I did not mean independent from me. I want you to be independent from all the rest of them. I do not trust all the rest of them, but here, you can trust me". That was basically the strategy behind the amendments. I do not wish to concentrate too much on the negatives of the debate. From day 1, there has been a constructive debate about the Fiscal Council. The Chair and the Committee have carried out great work in that regard. I send my thanks to the Committee Chair and the Committee staff. I also thank my departmental staff who have carried out great work on the Bill. I thank the current members of the Fiscal Council, who have been engaged in the debate and discussion about these matters and who have brought the legislation to this point. Mr Aiken raised concerns and said that, although we are passing the legislation, we have to ensure that the council has access to all the papers that it requires. To date, it has. There has been very good cooperation. As we have just discussed, the legislation states:

"The Council has a right of access ... to all ... government information which it may .... require for the ... purpose of the performance of the Council’s functions"

to produce Budget assessment and fiscal sustainability reports. Memoranda of understanding (MOUs) were signed between the council, all Departments and the NIO. Those MOUs set out the arrangements for regular exchange of information, including information requests through all parts of the Departments. The MOUs also set out the arrangements for expectations for information-sharing, including arrangements for handling the council's draft reports to support its delivery of its terms of reference. The MOUs will be reviewed once the council is set up in statute.

The Fiscal Council is bound to confidentiality on the information that is provided to it. When providing evidence to the Finance Committee, Sir Robert Chote recorded that the council had received all the information that it had requested. I have no reason to doubt that that will continue to be the case. I again put on record my thanks to all those involved in bringing the Bill to the point that we are at today. I commend the Bill to the House.

528 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:53 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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