Alan M. Dukes
Question:8 Mr. Dukes asked the Taoiseach the number of commissioned reports which he is currently awaiting from committees, commissions, interdepartmental committees and working groups.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Commissioned Reports.
At present I am awaiting one commissioned report from a working group which I established last August to consider the long-term arrangements for the use of the facilities in the conference centre at Dublin Castle.
I should like to thank the Taoiseach for his answer and for agreeing to take the question today on the basis that a broader question would more properly be answered by another Minister. I gather it is going to take at least a month to get the answers to these questions. Would the Taoiseach not agree that what we are seeing now is a process of non-government by long-fingering issues to committees? Is the Taoiseach aware, for example, that 23 committees are currrently due to report at some time in the future in the Department of Health, that there are several committees due to make reports to the Department of the Environment, that there are at least two committees that are due to report to the Department of Labour, and that that is the case in Department after Department? Would the Taoiseach not agree that that kind of thing is no substitute for the Government making up their mind about issues?
The Government are running the affairs of this country with great expedition and in their usual competent and successful manner.
That is why you postponed the elections.
That must be a first for the single transferable answer. The word "important" did not appear once in it.
Or "historic".
Would the Taoiseach not agree that in circumstances where in so many Departments action is being held up because the Government are awaiting the report of a committee, a commission or an interdepartmental committee, the work of Government is getting gummed up rather than proceeding with any kind of expedition?
I never heard such rubbish.
That is an award performance of the Taoiseach.
Could I ask the Taoiseach if, when we get the answers to all the other questions, he will reconsider his position?
The setting up of committees is part of the normal business of Government and at any point——
You are not setting up committees in here but out there. It is in here we should be talking. You made announcements outside about postponing the local elections. All those matters should be dealt with here, with respect to the Houses of Parliament.
At any point in the life of any Government many reports will be awaited. I am quite certain the same applied when the Deputy was charged with the affairs of Government.
There are 23 committees in the Department of Health. That is utterly unprecedented, even grotesque.
PLease, let us hear the replies.
A number of the committees the Deputy set up in his time never reported to anybody.
Name them?
The business of this Government is being conducted with quite unusual expedition and indeed success.
Without the Progressive Democrats.