Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 10 Mar 1987

Vol. 371 No. 1

Appointment of Taoiseach and Nomination of Members of Government.

The Taoiseach

B'áil liom cead a chur in iúl, mar eolas don Dáil, gur chuir mé m'ainmniú mar Thaoiseach in iúl don Uachtarán agus gur cheap sé mé dá réir.

I beg leave to announce for the information of the Dáil that I have informed the President that the Dáil has nominated me to be the Taoiseach and that he has appointed me accordingly.

Tairgim: "Go gcomhaontóidh Dáil Éireann leis an Taoiseach d'ainmniú na dTeachtaí seo a leanas chun a gceaptha ag an Uachtarán mar chomhaltaí den Rialtas":

I move: "That Dáil Éireann approve the nomination by the Taoiseach of the following Deputies for appointment by the President to be members of the Government":

Brian Ó Luinneacháin	Brian Lenihan
I also propose to nominate him as Tánaiste.
Reamon Mac Searraigh	Ray MacSharry
Gearóid Ó Coileáin	Gerard Collins
Seán P. Mac Uilliam	John Patrick Wilson
Micheál Ó Cinnéide	Michael O'Kennedy
Mícheál Ó h-Uadhaigh	Michael Woods
Ailbhe Mac Raghnaill	Albert Reynolds
Rádhulf De Búrca	Ray Burke
Breandán Ó Dálaigh	Brendan Daly
Pádraig Ó Floinn	Pádraig Flynn
Paralan Ó Eachthairn	Bertie Ahern
Ruairí Ó hAnnlúain	Rory O'Hanlon
Micheál S. Ó Núnáin	Michael J. Noonan
agus	and
Máire Uí Ruairc	Mary O'Rourke

It has been the practice at this stage to indicate the Departments to which members of the Government will be assigned. I propose to assign the Department of the Gaeltacht to myself. The other assignments are as follows:

Department of Foreign Affairs to Brian Lenihan;

Department of Finance and the Department of the Public Service to Ray MacSharry:

Department of Justice to Gerard Collins;

Department of Communications to John P. Wilson;

Department of Agriculture to Michael O'Kennedy;

Department of Social Welfare to Michael Woods;

Department of Industry and Commerce to Albert Reynolds;

Department of Energy to Ray Burke;

Department of Tourism, Fisheries and Forestry to Brendan Daly;

Department of the Environment to Pádraig Flynn;

Department of Labour to Bertie Ahern;

Department of Health to Rory O'Hanlon;

Department of Defence to Michael J. Noonan;

and

Department of Education to Mary O'Rourke.

I also propose to nominate Deputy Vincent Brady for appointment by the Government as Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach with special responsibility as Government Chief Whip.

I propose to nominate John Murray, SC for appointment by the President to be the Attorney General.

I have allocated the members of the Government to Departments on the basis of existing divisions of responsibility. There are, however, substantial changes which I propose to make in departmental responsibilities and organisation.

The Government will concentrate our main effort on areas of the economy with particular development potential, within a framework of consistent fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policies that will create an economic climate conducive to confidence and enterprise.

To that end, I am proposing some reorganisation of the Departments of the Government so as to focus political attention on, and give greater political impetus to, vital sectors where wealth and employment can be most readily created. The changes are designed to make the Government's management of the economy more effective and responsive to today's needs and opportunities. I hope they will recommend themselves to the House in that light.

I see marine resources and tourism as requiring specific and more concentrated governmental attention. The great wealth and employment potential of these sectors is, I am sure, recognised by all. I, therefore, propose to establish two new Departments, a Department of the Marine and a Department of Tourism and Transport and to expand the Department of Agriculture to become the Department of Agriculture and Food.

For administrative convenience, the Department of the Marine will formally replace the Department of Tourism, Fisheries and Forestry and will contain the functions of a number of existing Departments which relate to the sea and maritime affairs. The Minister for Tourism, Fisheries and Forestry will become the Minister for the Marine.

The new Department of Tourism and Transport will combine the tourism functions of the existing Department of Tourism, Fisheries and Forestry with the transport functions of the Department of Communications. Transport must be managed and developed in future as an essential element of a dynamic tourism policy and, in particular, access costs to this island must become more competitive if we are to recover the ground we have lost in recent years in the growth of international tourism. The Minister for Communications will become the Minister for Tourism and Transport.

The non-transport functions of the Department of Communications will, under the new arrangements, be allocated to the Minister for Energy. A Minister of State will be appointed with responsibility for the Department.

To form the new Department of Tourism and Transport, the statutory shell left by the Department of the Public Service will be used. The outgoing administration merged the ministerial responsibility for the Department of the Public Service with the Department of Finance. The merging of the two Departments is, in my view, desirable in the interests of better co-ordination of pay and staffing matters with budgetary requirements and of better utilisation of highly-qualified staffing resources.

In order to give greater thrust to certain development areas, I intend to create Offices attached to a number of Departments. Each of these Offices will be under the direct control of a Minister of State. A headline for these kind of Offices already exists in the Office of Public Works and the Office of the Revenue Commissioners, which are attached to the Department of Finance, but which exercise separately their own distinct functions and responsibilities.

These offices will have responsibility for certain key sectors of development and relevant ministerial powers will be delegated to the Minister in charge of each Office.

We will also examine, within the framework of recent developments in the organisation of Civil Service work, how the administrative efficiency of these Offices can be further enhanced in relation to their main Departments so that they can function with the speed, effectiveness and independence of a mini-Department of State.

The new Offices will be as follows:—

The Office of Science and Technology (attached to the Department of Industry and Commerce).

The Office of the Food Industry (attached to the Department of Agriculture).

The Office of Horticulture (attached to the Department of Agriculture).

The Office of Forestry (attached to the Department of Energy).

The Office of Trade and Marketing (attached to the Department of Industry and Commerce).

I will recommend that the Government appoint the following Deputies as Ministers of State and assign the Offices to them as follows:

Forestry, Michael Smith; Food Industry, Joe Walsh; Trade and Marketing, Séamus Brennan; Science and Technology, Seán McCarthy; Horticulture, Séamus Kirk.

I will inform the Dáil of these appointments when they are made and also of the appointments of other Ministers of State when they are made by the Government.

I would like to comment briefly on these Offices and on the contribution they can make to foster economic and employment growth. Science and technology, allied to the investment we decided to make at the end of the 1970s in telecommunications, has opened up a whole new area of opportunity for this country. By establishing an Office for Science and Technology, we intend to upgrade the importance of this whole area for national recovery, and create a high-technology, high-income economy.

By establishing an Office of the Food Industry, attached to the Department of Agriculture, we are giving high priority to the objective of creating a food-processing industry of larger international importance, greater diversity and higher value added.

Horticulture is a labour-intensive sector with, at present, an unnecessary level of imports. The function of the new Office will be to bring about a better organised commercial horticulture industry that will increase its share of the home market and develop, in time, substantial exports.

The better development and management of our forests and timber offer us great opportunities in import substitution and, in a Community short of timber, ultimately growing exports. It is proposed to transfer the forestry functions of the Department of Tourism, Fisheries and Forestry, to the Department of Energy, to which the new Office will be attached, with the mandate to develop potential through a new, more commercial approach.

Our standard of living will ultimately depend on our capacity to market our goods and services abroad. I am not satisfied that we have devoted enough attention and resources, in our development policies, to stimulating trade and marketing. I see the new Office of Trade and Marketing as one likely, therefore, to contribute very greatly to the growth of the economy.

This concept of Offices is one which we will consider extending to other areas as we gain experience of the operation of the Offices now being established.

Finally, I would like to mention my view about the need for greater co-ordination of Government activities and programmes with special reference to EC affairs where constant and effective co-ordination is vital. The outgoing administration took certain preliminary steps towards better co-ordination of departmental activities by the giving to a Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach the general task of ensuring better co-ordination and more speedy advancement of Government business. I propose to continue that arrangement, but I also envisage such a Minister of State being specially concerned with the co-ordination of our EC business through the work of the ministerial committee dealing with EC affairs.

Dr. FitzGerald

First, I would like on behalf of my party, to congratulate the people who have been appointed to the various posts and to wish them well in their work. We on this side of the House have no doubt whatever about the burdens they are taking on and the problems they will face. We respect the Taoiseach's decision on the allocation of functions and hope that the individuals, some of whom have experience already in particular Departments, will be successful in the task they have to undertake.

The other arrangements which have been mentioned by the Taoiseach are ones which represent a development of certain steps which I took in Government in terms of allocating specific functions and delegating them formally in the particular areas to Ministers of State. Indeed, in several instances there is no change in what we have already done in terms of the food area and also in terms of forestry.

The other proposed specific areas of trade and marketing, science and technology and horitculture are more experimental and we will have to judge in due course whether the earmarking of these areas for special attention under the auspices of Ministers of State is successful or not. We should not attempt to prejudge the issue. In some instances some problems will arise out of crossing of lines between the functions of different Departments but any restructuring carries that risk and I do not think we should do anything to discourage experimentation; we ourselves have experimented along these lines and I am glad to see that in general that trend is being continued.

We did, in our election document, make the point that we thought that it was not necessary to fill all the posts of Ministers of State that the law now allows. In the early days of the State they were quite few in number. The number gradually rose to seven, to ten and to 15. In terms of the areas which can be identified — the Taoiseach has identified some already — where it is possible to delegate the functions fairly fully, the number of such areas is not as great as 15. I notice the Taoiseach has announced five such appointments and he said there will be others. I suggest that he reflect before using up all the 15 posts unless genuine delegation can be achieved.

In regard to the co-ordination of departmental activities, I am glad the experiment we undertook with great success is being maintained. We found that the need to co-ordinate Government work needs attention. The only thing that would concern me about the Taoiseach's proposal is the combination of that work of co-ordination, of speedy advancement of Government business, with co-ordination of EC business through the work of the ministerial committee dealing with EC affairs. I recognise that the overall burden of work involved in the area of Foreign Affairs — of EC affairs, Northern Ireland affairs and general foreign affairs — is very great. Nonetheless I have some doubt about an arrangement which would separate EC business from other aspects of foreign affairs, given the increasingly close relationship between political co-operation and Community affairs which makes that kind of division difficult. I contemplated attempting such a division within Foreign Affairs — two Ministers dealing with different aspects — but there were technical and constitutional difficulties in what I proposed so I did not proceed with it. What is proposed here is to take this area out of Foreign Affairs into the Taoiseach's Department. I have some hesitation about that but the Taoiseach must make his own decisions and we will have to see how it will work out.

I want to be constructive in relation to the problems that will confront the Government. It is appropriate on an occasion like this to be so. The problems we faced as a Government were aggravated by two major factors. One was the shortfall in revenue which occurred in the past few years, particularly since 1984, through lack of growth and through unexpectedly low inflation rates. Inflation fell faster than expected while commitments were entered into on the assumption of higher inflation rates. There was also an exceptionally big drop in non-tax revenue by comparison with what we had expected. Those problems of shortfall of revenue account for the whole of our difficulties in attaining our target to reduce the current budget deficit.

At the same time we faced very high rates associated with a combination of high domestic borrowing and problems posed by the fall in the dollar and sterling rates placing a strain on our relations with the EMS. But for those two sets of problems occurring we would have got down to a level of borrowing of 8½ per cent of GNP in 1987 and that would have put us in a situation where the level of interest charges, all things being equal, would have tended to diminish as a proportion of taxation rather than to rise as it had done hitherto. They are the problems that put us off course.

The incoming Government will also face those problems but they may benefit from some improvement in some respects. They may benefit from lower interest rates: there are early indications of that. This will be especially true if Britain joins the EMS after the British general election. It is also possible that the Government may be luckier than we were in terms of economic growth but in our circumstances I am very sceptical of the capacity of a Government in a country like ours to generate economic growth that would not otherwise have occurred, except in the long term through operating wise policies which have a generally beneficent effect on the atmosphere for enterprise in the community as a whole.

We cannot create growth from nothing. While I do not wish to be controversial, the Government when in opposition during the election campaign seemed to suggest that growth could be created at 3½ per cent per annum with the wave of a wand. The Government might be fortunate in experiencing a higher growth rate than we did but it will not happen automatically and the amount the Government can do in our open economy to contribute to it, especially with the constraints in spending, is extremely limited. Even in favourable circumstances, even if the Government are fortunate in terms of growth and lower interest rates, they will still face very grave problems in terms of the control of spending. Even in favourable circumstances they will have to ensure, if they are to get borrowing down to the necessary level and prevent the vicious circle of the increasing burden of interest payments vis-à-vis taxation, that public spending is held at its present level. Some areas of spending, such as education must rise for demographic reasons and if we are to maintain the overall level of spending, some other areas must fall. Even in favourable economic conditions the Government cannot avoid that dilemma. It is in tackling that problem that they will require and will receive the support of the Opposition.

I emphasise the importance the Government should attach to the European Community. We are at a point now where we have continuing problems deriving from the pressures on the CAP. These problems require very skilful handling in order to minimise the impact on agriculture here. We have been remarkably successful in minimising the impact of these policies but problems still exist and the pressures will continue. The new Government will face the problems we faced in trying to ensure that they do not have an unduly adverse effect on our hard pressed farm sector. At the same time, there are exceptional opportunities which are perhaps not fully appreciated in terms of the Commission's proposals in relation to cohesion, for expansion of the total resources of the Community and through the diversion of these resources into the structural funds and in proposals for doubling structural funds in a manner directed towards benefiting particularly countries like ours on the periphery of the Community. These proposals the Government will not have difficulty in supporting. They will have some difficulty, however, in securing their implementation because undoubtedly there will be a strong backlash against them from some member states more concerned with limiting the amount of spending by the Community than with developing the Community and its operations in a constructive way. Major effort will be required to ensure that the extremely favourable Commission proposals will come into effect. The Government should give maximum attention to that. Whether that is best done by associating it with the work of the Taoiseach's Department or through the Department of Foreign Affairs is a matter for the Government. Let no one doubt that the possibilities here are very great indeed.

It is perhaps not widely appreciated that in this whole area much depends on the goodwill of other Governments as well as on skill and diplomacy on our part. One factor which has created great goodwill towards us in Europe and in the US is the negotiation of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. The degree of interest in and commitment to that agreement in Europe and the degree of interest in the US where the investment of political effort into that area by leaders of Congress as well as by the President is so great that it means the agreement has an importance which transcends these islands. It will be important for this Government to clearly establish their commitment to the agreement not merely for the purposes of achieving results within this island, particularly in Northern Ireland, but to maintain the goodwill which exists towards us in Europe and the US. That is ancillary to the agreement which is of vital importance to peace and stability in Northern Ireland. Its potential is enormous, given adequate attention and support. Efforts invested here can yield real results within a couple of years. I hope and believe the Government will understand and appreciate that and will in their approach secure the benefits which can come from the work which has been put in there.

For my own part and indeed so far as this party are concerned, I can say that we will do our best to help in all these areas. If given the material to work with we will certainly endeavour to be supportive of the Government's efforts be they in Europe, the United States or Great Britain. I have to say that during the last couple of months, recognising the possibility of a change of Government, with the election which was bound to come early this year, I endeavoured where possible where the matter arose to convey to other Governments that if there were a change of Government it would not mean any lessening of the commitment to the Anglo-Irish Agreement. I will certainly continue to propound that view so long as the evidence justifies it as I believe and hope it will.

With those general remarks I simply want to wish the new Government well. I would like to thank the Leader of the Opposition for his remarks in response to what I said following his election and to thank him for his recognition of the exceptional problems our Government faced and the fact that we endeavoured to tackle them responsibly although necessarily at times in a manner different from that which his party would have adopted. I am grateful for the courtesy of his remarks and I hope that the contructive spirit in which this Dáil has begun will be maintained. It is vital that it be so. None of us is or need to be in doubt about the gravity of the problems facing us or about the fact that they can only be overcome by an effort of political will involving a commitment and a degree of united effort on the part of all of us in politics which is outside the normal framework of what has in the past been secured or what has seemed possible to secure given the adversarial character of our parliamentary system.

I know it is going to be difficult for all of us. We are going to find it difficult at times to offer the degree of support which will be necessary for the Government to carry out their functions effectively and to overcome the great problems that face us and to take on the vested interests which are strangling this country. It will not be easy for an Opposition to support some of the measures the Government will have to take. Yet we will do so. It will not be easy for the Government to take these steps but they must do so. It will not be easy for this House to operate in such a way as to secure, on the one hand, the benefits of the degree of unity required to tackle the problems of the scale which now face us and, on the other hand, to maintain the distance there should be between Government and Opposition and to continue to carry out the constructive role of Opposition in questioning the Government's actions, scrutinising them and of keeping the Government up to the mark in the way in which every Opposition have to do.

The manner in which this Dáil will have to carry on their affairs will be different from any previous one. That is going to require, on our part certainly, a degree of goodwill and constructiveness in Opposition greater than any of us in Opposition have previously found it possible to accord and, on the part of the Government, necessarily a corresponding response in terms of a willingness to be open with the Opposition and the House and to seek and rely on our support when things need to be done for the sake of our country. I will not say more than that now but I do want to emphasise how crucial this Dáil will be for the sake of our people and the sense of responsibility I feel and my party feel to play our part constructively.

In conclusion, a Cheann Comhairle, I would like at this stage to congratulate you publicly as others have done, and as I have done privately, on your election and to assure you of our good intentions in regard to acting in an orderly manner in this House. I say "good intentions" because from time to time all of us fall short of our best intentions. I am sure there will be moments occasionally, every few months, when you will have to correct somebody who is out of order but we will do our best to assist you and when you call us to order to respond in the way in which we should if this House is to carry on its affairs in a dignified way.