The president of the Public Relations Institute of Ireland, Mr Pat Montague, has called for an end to the "unhealthy secrecy" surrounding the drafting of the annual Budget.
Mr Montague said given that the Minister for Finance was now hiring consultants to review the wide range of tax breaks and tax shelters in advance of next year's Budget, Mr Cowen should also examine the procedures for forming the Budget, he said
He said there was no meaningful role for the public, or Oireachtas representatives, in the process.
The Government, he said, should be required to publish a mid-year economic assessment outlining the parameters of the budgetary debate. Draft departmental estimates should be presented to the relevant Dáil committee for debate and the priorities be publicly aired at committee level. This would enable the Dáil to make changes to the estimates before they were finalised.
Mr Montague said that those making pre-Budget submissions should also be requested to present their arguments and proposals before the relevant committee and to account for their demands.
Those seeking either more expenditure or tax breaks were not being asked to publicly account for their proposals and to explain how they were in the wider interests of the community as a whole.
"In fact the opposite has happened here in Ireland, with a whole culture of secrecy surrounding the budgetary process.
The question to consider, Mr Montague said, was whether this secretive approach to budgeting was in the public interest or whether it suited private interests, particularly those of the rich and powerful.
"Would the decisions to fund the Punchestown Centre, or impose the Savage 16 welfare cuts or create the vast array of tax breaks and shelters have been made as easily as they were, if they had to be justified before they were made rather than afterwards?"