asked the Minister for Defence the names of the recipients of military service pensions in County Sligo; and the amount of pension payable to each.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Recipients of Military Service Pensions.
41.
The information is being compiled and will be forwarded to the Deputy.
42.
asked the Minister for Defence the names of the persons in receipt of military service pensions in County Donegal; and the amount of pension payable to each veteran.
The information is being compiled and will be forwarded to the Deputy.
In regard to the last two questions, I am not concerned with either the names or the amounts but may I submit that, if a Parliamentary Question is put down in Dáil Éireann to which a Minister purports to give an answer, that answer is the property not alone of the Deputy who tables the Question but of the whole House and that it should be inserted in the records of the House?
That has not been the method by which it was always done. It was done more frequently by the method I adopted.
It has also been done by the other method.
It has, but it has been done by this method on more occasions than the other.
I addressed my question to you, a Cheann Comhairle.
I do not think I have any authority whatsoever in the matter.
This matter should be finally determined because it has happened not alone in respect of questions like this but in respect of other information sought, where the Minister says he has not got the information but will send it to the Deputy when he has got it. On other occasions, when Ministers did not have the information to enable them to give a reply, they asked the Deputy to repeat the question and the answer has been invariably recorded in the Official Report.
The Chair has always taken the attitude that it has no control over the format or method of presentation of replies to questions in the House.
Then surely any Minister could give the same reply as the Minister for Defence has given?
That would be a matter for the House.
Will the Taoiseach not agree that to avoid duplication, it would be much better to put it on the records of the House? Otherwise other Deputies will be asking the same questions.
The Minister says there are precedents which have supported the type of answers he has given here.
And there are precedents the other way. I have read them, too.
A Deputy is entitled to get an oral answer to a question if he wants it that way, but it is not clear from the nature of the questions on the Order Paper that these Deputies required to have the answers in that way and in the Official Report.
This is not the first time it has been done. It has been done over the years and on several other occasions I have raised the matter. If a question is put down on the Order Paper, the answer should be available to all Deputies.
Certainly if any Deputy expresses a desire to have the information, it can be sent to him.
Why should he waste the time of civil servants and others in doing that? Could he not write to the Minister?
If you want it that way, you write to the Minister. If you want it for the records of the House, you put down a Question.
I do not feel any obligation upon me as Minister for Defence to undertake the task of publishing these names. The Deputy has asked for the information and I am having it compiled and sent to him. I do not know that if any other Minister were asked for a list of any other class of pensioners Deputies would get any more information than I am giving in this matter.
The point is not peculiar to the Minister for Defence. It could be applied to any Minister.
If there are any questions asked in respect of any class of pensioners, except military service pensioners——
I am not concerned with military service pensions. If the Minister for Defence does not want to be reasonable——
I am being reasonable.
Surely if a Deputy were asking for a written answer, it would be done in a different way.
We cannot decide the matter in this fashion. The Chair has no control whatever over the manner in which replies are presented by Ministers.
Then a Minister may answer a Question any way. He may give the answer to a Deputy and it will never be on the records of the House.
If the Deputy wants the information published in the official record, he can get it. The Minister is entitled to assume he wants the information and not the publication of the information.
He would have written to the Minister.
There is no difference between written and oral answers. They are both printed in the Official Report.
When Fianna Fáil wanted names published in the Official Report, they took particular care to have them published. When it suited the Fianna Fáil Party, they published them in the Official Report; when it did not suit, they did not have them published. Now they want it the other way.
Could we have the real reasons why the Minister for Defence is not making this information available to the House?
It has not been the practice. It has been the practice, as the Deputy does not know and as he is being informed, to reply to Questions of this kind in this manner.
No, it has not.
It is a malpractice.