Economics:  There is a particular style of commentary which involves the learned correspondent writing "an open letter" to some senior minister, offering advice on some important subject, writes Cliff Taylor.

It always struck me as a particularly self-important way to write, as if the senior figure to which the letter was addressed was on tenterhooks waiting for advice. Which, of course, is generally not the case.

But if there was one thing I'd like to say to Charlie McCreevy it would be "abandon Budget day". We urgently need to get away from the "rabbit from the hat" approach to presenting economic policy and towards a more modern and rational method.

Nothing, surely, illustrates this better than the sight of a Minister of State putting signs up in his constituency in the immediate aftermath of the Budget, claiming credit for a decentralisation initiative which the Minister for Finance assured us shortly afterwards he knew nothing about. Not the first example of post hoc politicking in Ireland, but surely one of the more crass.

Indeed the whole decentralisation announcement is the clearest example of why Budget Day should be abolished. The planned initiative has been flagged for four years and there has been ample time since to discuss and debate the issue with the people involved and come up with a proper framework to make it happen.

Instead, the various Departments were doled out around the country and most of the chief executives and secretaries-general only got a few hours' notice.

This is simply not the way to do business in a modern state. There is, of course, a time when the Government needs to stand up and make a decision to push things forward. But planning the initiative in the way that it was done means the whole process was undertaken without reference to the people affected, who might, perhaps, have been able to advise on how best to make it work. And announcing it as the primary Budget rabbit immediately led to a backlash from various public service departments and organisations affected.

This is just a symptom of the wider budgetary disease of dreaming things up in secret in the higher echelons of Government and the Department of Finance where, despite the considerable expertise that can be called on and the ruminations of the Tax Strategy Committee of civil servants, things can inevitably be missed.

Take the decision in the 2003 budget to abolish a range of property-based tax allowances. These had been shown by a Revenue study to be the key vehicles used by the wealthiest individuals to legally avoid tax. In some cases the resulting investment may be led to a wider economic gain, but the evidence was that in most the cost to the Exchequer was high.

In his 2003 Budget, Mr McCreevy announced that the main property schemes - such as the urban and rural renewal schemes and the car park scheme - were to terminate at the end of this year. His language was unequivocal: "Given the current and prospective budgetary position, the existing demand for property investment and the desire to improve equity in the tax system, there is no justification for a continuation of these reliefs beyond 2004."

A year later the position had changed. The end-2004 termination date was putting pressure on construction resources. As a result the Minister would extend the date to mid-2006.

There are two possibilities here. The first is that the Government caved in to lobbying from the construction sector. The second - and more charitable - is that the Minister was not aware when he announced the ending of the concessions in budget 2003 that it would cause considerable difficulty in completing projects already planned or under way. Some consultation on the issue before budget day would surely have brought this to light and allowed the Minister to announce a phase-out date he could stick to.

Likewise, the Government clearly did not foresee the furore from the proposed abolition of the section 481 film tax relief. Again, it was forced to row back here in last month's package.

The same considerations apply on the spending side of the package - and are perhaps even more important.Here the main decisions are announced in the Estimates, but the approach is similar. Everything is kept under wraps until the last minute. Only the officials in the different Government Departments - and the controllers in the Department of Finance - know their own allocations for the following year.

Politically, this can lead to difficulties. Would the Government really have pushed ahead with the cutbacks in welfare schemes in the 2004 estimates had it known the adverse reaction. And, apart from political flak, in social terms does the Cabinet really think the impact of the measures is worth enduring for the €50 million odd in savings? Having announced it as part of the sacred Estimates process, however, there was no going back.

The final criticism of the process is the way the Estimates and the budget are run through the Dáil. Opposition figures are forced back into ritual condemnation and the only real debate comes on the fine detail, when the Finance Bill passes through the Oireachtas

There must be a better way. International models suggest a range of approaches. In Germany, for example, the parliament gets to debate and discuss the budget for four months.

In the US, the Congress is supported in its analysis by its own resourced Congressional Budget Office. Of course, the US presidential system is different, but there may still be lessons here. In New Zealand there is a developed structure with objectives written into legislation and a parliamentary discussion of objectives before the Budget itself.

None of these models would be likely to transfer directly to Ireland. But we do need to find a way to allow proper analysis of the tax and spending provisions, with the imperative of ensuring that lobbying does not lead to paralysis in this process.

There has been some progress. The Department of Finance now outlines "no change" spending provisions for three years and a financial framework goes to Brussels. The move to five-year capital spending envelopes is also a step forward.

But the bulk of budgetary decisions is still based on a once-a-year cash-based system which encourages incremental spending growth across the board, rather than a fundamental examination of priorities. If we are really serious about changing this, then we need to take the bang out of Budget Day.