Joseph Doyle
Question:12 Mr. Doyle asked the Minister for Finance if he will consider the possibility of introducing a single coterminous set of regions for all State agencies and services so as to provide a basis for rational general planning.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Co-ordination of State Agencies.
Mary Flaherty
Question:22 Miss Flaherty asked the Minister for Finance if he will consider the possibility of introducing a single coterminous set of regions for all State agencies and services so as to provide a basis for rational general planning.
P. J. Sheehan
Question:32 Mr. Sheehan asked the Minister for Finance if he will consider the possibility of introducing a single coterminous set of regions for all State agencies and services so as to provide a basis for rational general planning.
Patrick D. Harte
Question:43 Mr. Harte asked the Minister for Finance if he will consider the possibility of introducing a single coterminous set of regions for all State agencies and services so as to provide a basis for rational general planning.
William Cotter
Question:45 Mr. Cotter asked the Minister for Finance if he will consider the possibility of introducing a single coterminous set of regions for all State agencies and services so as to provide a basis for rational general planning.
John Bruton
Question:81 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Minister for Finance if he will consider the possibility of introducing a single coterminous set of regions for all State agencies and services so as to provide a basis for rational general planning.
Paul Connaughton
Question:83 Mr. Connaughton asked the Minister for Finance if he will consider the possibility of introducing a single coterminous set of regions for all State agencies and services so as to provide a basis for rational general planning.
Dinny McGinley
Question:89 Mr. McGinley asked the Minister for Finance if he will consider the possibility of introducing a single coterminous set of regions for all State agencies and services so as to provide a basis for rational general planning.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 12, 22, 32, 43, 45, 81, 83 and 89 together. The question of aligning the sub-national divisions used by Government Departments and State agencies in the provision of services to the public was extensively examined some years ago by my Department with the assistance of an interdepartmental committee and outside planning and organisational expertise.
It was clear from this examination that while improvements might be effected by increased co-ordination on a regional basis of the activities of some of the bodies concerned, divergences in the territorial arrangements for the provision of different services had been shaped, in large measure, by the nature of the service involved and the fact that the most effective structure for the delivery of one service frequently turns out to be unsuitable for another.
Why are there different regional arrangements for health boards as compared with local government planning structures? Surely there is no justification for that?
There are a great number of changes in the regional structures operated by organisations such as the IDA, FÁS and the local authorities. The inter-departmental group which examined this matter some years ago came up with some realistic answers to these questions. To have a certain standard of hospital there must be a certain catchment area of population. Areas of the Gaeltacht must cover an Irish-speaking population. Industries try to take in certain catchment areas. The Minister for the Environment is engaged in an examination of the structure of regional and local authorities. In preparation for the next round of the Structural Funds I have been anxious to move to that system but in the absence of agreement I am left to deal with the sub-groups as they were for the last round. This matter has been looked at by successive Governments and nobody has agreed to standard regions.
Would the Minister not agree that this is a classic case for political decision and that if he leaves this sort of matter to an inter-departmental group of civil or public servants, all of whom fear they might lose something by changing the existing regional pattern, nothing will ever happen and that the only way any rational regional policy will be introduced, with simple workable regions which relate to each other, is if Ministers like him take the decision to do it?
I agree with what Deputy Bruton is saying. The Fine Gael-Labour Government in the mid-seventies spent a lot of time working on this. I am not sure if Deputy Bruton was a member of that Government. I read the report in preparation for answering this question. They started out along the lines of what Deputy Bruton is saying but the then Taoiseach, Mr. Cosgrave, and the then Tánaiste, Mr. Corish, said what we have said. When the matter was examined they found pages and pages of reasons not to do it. It was looked at again by the late George Colley and it was again agreed not to do it. It makes great sense until somebody tries to do it. For the past three or four months I have been waiting for the Department of the Environment to clear up the position relating to regional authorities. That has to be cleared before we move to standardised regions.
Many of us have been involved in that kind of exercise. Would the Minister not agree that when all the words in the numerous pages to which he refers are distilled, the underlying advice is political from the bureaucrat to the Minister of the day, to the effect that an integrated regional structure which combines the powers of health, planning, regional development and anything else would confer a certain degree of political strength on such regions, to the disadvantage of the permanent civil servants and the Minister of the day? Would he agree that there is an internal political conspiracy by the permanent government to prevent such cohesion?
I cannot blame Deputy Quinn for being involved in Government at that stage because he was not but, after the permanent civil service of the day came to the conclusion that they could do nothing they handed the matter to a Cabinet sub-committee in 1976 who did nothing either. It went to my party when in Government in 1978 for the late Deputy George Colley to deal with but he did not change it. The facts are that all our parties——
In government.
——in government over the past 15 years examined this issue in great detail. It would be far simpler from the position of the Minister for Finance, for many reasons, if there was standardisation but that is not the position of many other Departments.
I do not know how to phrase this interrogatively but I know I have to to be in order. Would the Minister for Finance accept that I am extremely surprised that he as Minister for Finance should use, as an excuse for not acting on this issue, a report prepared by a Government when he was still at school? Would he not agree that as Minister for Finance——
On a point of order, I was in this House when that report was prepared. I am not as young as I look.
In 1973?
No, it was 1978. I know I still look young but I am not that young. The Coalition Government lead by Liam Cosgrave and Brendan Corish left office in 1977.
Would the Minister for Finance agree that he is now in a position — I do not know how long he will be in that position — which no other Member of the House is in, including the Taoiseach, to do something about this? The Department of Finance should take an initiative, not commission a report, to have a single set of regions introduced.
They do not want them.
Would the Minister agree that if he fails to do so we will continue to waste money here and we will never have the sort of regionalised and decentralised administrative and political system in Ireland that every other country in Europe has?
We cannot debate the matter now.
Every day I am anxious to do things people have not done over the years, including Deputy Bruton, who was in charge of the Department of Finance on two occasions and left this issue there to be sorted out.
I did enough for the time I was there.
The matter is being examined under the regional authorities in every Bill that comes before this House, there is agreement to alternative structures for vocational education committees, IDA, FÁS, health boards and local authorities. All Governments have continued to do that and it makes sense in regard to some issues.
I want to proceed to other questions. I wish to advise the House that I am extremely disappointed about the lack of progress made at Question Time today. We have only disposed of some 13 questions in one hour and that is not good enough from any standpoint. A brief question from Deputy Bruton.
Would the Minister agree it is wrong for him to blame this House when the Department of Finance are the only body who have a hand in all that legislation and should insist, as a condition for their agreement to any of these new regional arrangements, on a single system being introduced?
I should like to make a few brief points. The theory of this issue is very good and it has been examined by the Department of Finance and other Departments in the past. There are many crucial points such as that administrative boundaries do not lend themselves to match in with others. The Gaeltacht, which spans several IDA and health board regions, has its own partially elected Údarás. If that were broken into regions it would break the whole structure. A certain level of population is required to provide the utilisation needed to justify certain sophisticated hospital equipment and if that were broken up it would result in huge costs being put on the health services which they cannot afford. Boundaries used by the Department of Agriculture and Food have to take account of cattle and human population and the incidence of cattle diseases and that argument has been looked at and written about extensively.
Maybe the country is the wrong shape.
The areas of responsibility of the fishery boards are dictated by the layout of river systems and we cannot neatly divide rivers.
I do not think the Minister believes that material.
I do not think one can ignore it.
The Minister should submit that as a script for "Yes Minister".
The Barrington Commission and every Minister for the Environment and Health have come to the same conclusion over the years, so too has Deputy Bruton.
I have not.
Question No. 14 please.