asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries the date of publication of the annual report on the activities of his Department for 1964-65, 1965-66, 1966-67, 1967-68 and 1969-70; the number of reports published for each year; and when he expects annual reports for 1970-71 and 1971-72 to be published.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Agriculture Annual Report.
47.
Two annual reports, one dealing with agriculture and one with fisheries are published by my Department. The agriculture report relates to the financial year and the fisheries report to the calendar year. The dates of publication in recent years were as follows:
|
Year |
Date published |
|
Agricultural Report: |
|
|
1964-65 |
15 December, 1966 |
|
1965-66 |
2 November, 1967 |
|
1966-67 |
2 August, 1968 |
|
1967-68 |
20 October, 1969 |
|
1968-69 |
26 August, 1970 |
|
1969-70 |
17 April, 1972 |
|
Fisheries Report: |
|
|
1964 |
8 June, 1966 |
|
1965 |
5 January, 1967 |
|
1966 |
1 August, 1968 |
|
1967 |
7 July, 1969 |
|
1968 |
18 December, 1969 |
|
1969 |
21 June, 1971 |
The Agriculture Report for 1970-71 and the Fisheries Report for 1970 are with the printers and should be published within a few weeks. The next following reports should be available about the end of this year.
Am I correct in saying that in some cases there have been time lags of as long as 1½ years in the publication of the report?
That is so.
Can the Minister explain why this should happen and would he not agree that in order for these reports to be of any use they should be available almost immediately after the end of the year to which they relate so that the information is relevant? If that cannot be done would it not be better to scrap publication of the reports altogether?
Which supplementary question would the Deputy like me to answer?
They relate to one another.
There has been a delay of, apparently, as long as 18 months in the publication of one of these reports. That is unfortunate and should not happen but I understand from the brief note here that apart from the delays involved on the part of the Department in assimilating data which is not available until well into the financial year, other problems arise also. One of these is that Government printing is slow.
Is that due to the take-over of Cahills?
The best that can be promised for this year is to have the two reports published within about 12 months after the year to which they relate.
If the printing cost is a major factor, could the contents of the report not be circulated in stencilled form to Deputies?
Again, I will have this view brought to the attention of the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.