Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill, 1995: Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

An Cathaoirleach

I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Hogan, to the House.

Minister of State at the Department of Finance (Mr. Hogan)

I thank you, a Chathaoirligh, for your kind remarks. I was a Member of the Seanad from 1987 to 1989, but I was only one day in these salubrious surroundings. I spent most of my time in the ante room because this beautiful Chamber was being renovated at that time.

Mr. Dardis

The Minister has taken a long time to come back.

Mr. Hogan

That depends on the electorate of Carlow-Kilkenny.

This Bill is required to give effect to the decision by the Government to increase the number of Ministers of State from 15 to 17. At present section 1 of the Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) (No. 2) Act, 1977, as amended by section 2 of the Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Act, 1980, restricts the maximum number of Ministers of State to 15.

This Bill has come in for criticism in the Lower House. The gist of this criticism is that we should not seek to increase the number of Ministers of State. I find the reasoning behind this somewhat difficult to fathom. It would seem that nobody seriously disputes that the tasks which are to be assigned to Deputies Doyle and Carey are of pressing importance. Indeed, I was particularly impressed by the passion with which a number of Deputies argued for much greater State attention to be paid to the West in the light of the particular demographic and economic difficulties which that region faces. I could not have made a better case myself. Equally, I did not hear a single word of criticism regarding the range of duties to be given to Deputy Doyle — save for the observation that they seemed too onerous for one person to carry.

Given the general acceptance for the functions to be performed by the two proposed additional Ministers of State, one can only inter that the opponents of this Bill believe that these tasks should be performed by existing Ministers of State. But to which existing Ministries of State should they be assigned? The Bill's opponents have given us no realistic proposals in this regard, and I can tell Members why. These significant additional areas of responsibility could not be handled by any existing junior Ministry without seriously diminishing the impact of these new functions. We have no intention of selling the people short in regard to these critical duties. We have nothing to apologise for — quite the contrary. The duties in question are of immense importance and I will elaborate on them.

Deputy Carey will be Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach and the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht. He is to be given special responsibility for co-ordinating the Government's commitment to western development and rural renewal. Nobody in this House would dispute that the West has been beset by a major economic vicious cycle. With the declining population services have been reduced and economic activity has declined leading, in turn, to further depopulation. The western diaspora must be halted. It is expected that the population of the West will have stabilised by the end of the decade. A major element of Deputy Carey's portfolio will be responsibility for the activities of the western development partnership board and for co-ordinating support for the implementation of the action plan which the board is preparing and which I expect to be produced by next autumn.

The Government perceive a difficulty in co-ordinating the various public services in remote rural areas. Deputy Carey will be given responsibility for overseeing the implementation of a pilot programme for the development of a more integrated approach to these services. This pilot programme, which will be first developed in the West, is the first step in the development of an innovative response to the need to reconcile efficiency and equity in ensuring access to services in rural areas generally.

Deputy Carey will also have a special brief in relation to the improvement in living conditions of residents on our islands. He will chair an interdepartmental committee to examine the various problems facing island communities and the ways in which these difficulties can be overcome. The Gaeltacht areas hold a special significance for the development of the West. Deputy Carey will have special responsibility for the Gaeltacht areas at the Department for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht. It is only through cooperation between dynamic and optimistic local communities who have a positive vision of their future and a Government firmly committed to western development that real progress can be achieved.

We are conscious of the initiatives of non-governmental groups and the work of the bishops in their Crusade for Survival is particularly worthy of praise in trying to seek solutions to the particular problems of less economically advantaged regions. Deputy Carey's appointment to this particular brief represents, in a tangible way, this Government's serious intention to support and enhance these efforts by positive political action.

Deputy Doyle is to be appointed as Minister of State at three Departments — the Department of the Taoiseach, the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications and the Department of Finance. Her remit will include special responsibility for a number of initiatives in public service reform. Among the specific tasks to be assigned to the Minister of State is the development of the strategic management initiative, or SMI as it is more commonly called, in the public service. The SMI underpins our entire programme of reform in the public service.

This important initiative, which is currently under way across all Departments and offices, was set in train by the previous Taoiseach, Deputy Reynolds, and is being continued by this Government. The first phase of the initiative, completed in the latter part of 1994, concentrated on developing the mission and strategic high level objectives of each Department and the identification of the optimum business strategy over the next several years. The initiative also embraces wider public service issues which transcend the immediate concerns of any one Department.

The primary objective of the SMI is to put in place, in each Department and public service agency, a management process that is focused on ensuring continuous improvements in the performance of the civil and wider public service in relation to the contribution that they can make to national development, the provision of services to the public, and the efficient and effective use of resources. Another aim of the SMI initiative is to ensure greater co-operation and interaction between Departments in areas of mutual interest and between Departments and their agencies. There will also be a greater focus on improving the delivery of services with a view to making them more customer orientated.

The SMI will embrace a critical assessment of existing practices along with the many assumptions and rigidities which have, inevitably, grown up in areas of the public service over the years. It will facilitate the carrying through of the necessary reforms to ensure that the public service is able to meet the challenges of the coming decades effectively and with confidence.

Another important area of reform in which I expect Deputy Doyle to play a major role is in ensuring that the interests of the consumer are paramount in all dealings with the public services, including State companies. It is because of the number of major State companies which come within the ambit of the Department of Transport, Energy and Communication, for example, An Post, Telecom Éireann, the ESB, Aer Lingus and the bus and rail companies, all companies with which members of the public have significant dealings, that Deputy Doyle has been assigned to that Department.

Mr. O'Kennedy

What will the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, Deputy Lowry, do? I thought that was his responsibility.

Mr. Hogan

The Government's programme of work includes an undertaking that it will publish an administrative procedures Bill. The objective of this Bill will be to ensure that the citizen, in all his or her dealings with the institutions of Government, receives the level of service which he or she has every right to expect. The Bill will vest in the Office of the Ombudsman monitoring and regulatory functions and will incorporate requirements on such issues as response time for handling cases, the level of guidance to be given to the public, and the form in which decisions are communicated which will be set out — the basis for the decision, the right of appeal, the right of access to relevant information on the case and the right of the individual to confer with the officials who have taken the decision.

Deputy Doyle will be closely involved in a number of other key public service reform items. These include the review of the provisions of the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924, which underpins our Civil Service system, the strengthening of our Oireachtas committee system through the introduction of legislation which will empower committees to call for persons and papers and to confer privilege on witnesses, a review of the remit of the Ombudsman with a view to a major extension of that Office's powers, and the development generally of the principles of openness and transparency.

While achievement in the area of public service reform has been less than satisfactory over the years, this Government has nailed its colours to the mast: we have set out our plans in detail in our policy statement —A Government of Renewal— and we are prepared to be judged on our success, or otherwise, in these issues. With Deputy Doyle guiding this element of the Government and the programme, I am confident that we will succeed.

The Government has an exciting programme of work. We are determined to accomplish those targets set out in that programme. Every effort will be made to ensure its success. The appointment of two energetic and talented individuals as additional Ministers of State is central to ensuring that success.

Members of this House have brought their personal expertise and interests to bear on the workings of the existing Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and thus enhanced the working of that committee. In recognition of the high value which we attach to that contribution, the Government is proposing that Seanad membership of that committee be doubled from five to ten.

Mr. O'Kennedy

Thanks very much.

Mr. Hogan

In addition, it is our intention that Senators will also be members of the four new committees which we propose to establish, dealing with the most strategically important aspects of national life.

As part of this major reinforcement of parliamentary authority, Ministers and other State office holders will appear before these committees to discuss their policies and their implementation. The increase in the number of Ministers of State is substantially related to this new approach to Government accountability.

Mr. O'Kennedy

I welcome the Minister to the House. I hate to see honest men do an injustice to themselves by attempting through specious presentation, which I will come to in the course of my presentation, to justify the totally unjustifiable proposal contained in this legislation. I hate to see honest men such as the Minister of State, Deputy Hogan; the Leader of the House, Senator Manning and the Taoiseach, Deputy Bruton, present specious arguments to us which they know in their hearts of hearts they would not attempt for one minute to justify on any public platform to any member of the public. They know full well that if the specious arguments which they have presented in purported justification of this legislation were presented from any public platform in any part of the country — Kilkenny, Kerry, Tipperary or anywhere — they would be shouted down with ridicule and abuse.

They know that the Irish people are seething with discontent and outrage at this decision — and I can quote precedent for this kind of action from a Government of this nature — to increase the number of Ministers of State from 15 to 17. This Government knows — and this is really the acid test — that if it consulted the people on this proposal and offered these specious arguments in its support, it would be overwhelmingly rejected.

I want to ask if any one of them is prepared to say here in the course of this or any other debate "We know that the people of Ireland want this and we are acting in accordance with what we believe their wishes and expectations to be". Let them say that honestly and publicly, because they know they cannot. That is why the exercise of parliamentary democracy is being undermined through this instrument in more ways than one. I will deal with the other ways as well.

In the course of my presentation I will also acknowledge some mistakes which we made from time to time when we were in Government — although never on the same consistent and grand scale as a coalition inter party Government. The facts will be there to speak for themselves.

They offer these specious reasons for this wholly unjustifiable proposal which they know is far from being necessary, as they would suggest, in the national interest. I have seen that term being twisted and distorted so often in recent years that I ask myself if it is any wonder that Irish people are cynical about politicians. Can we at least be honest and say that we are doing it because we have to accommodate certain inter-party tensions and the demand for jobs?

This is a cynical attempt to justify what the Government has described as an important initiative in strategic management. I do not think that the public servants who serve behind Government should be asked to stand over that type of specious, distorted falsehood. We are told that this is an important initiative in strategic management, when anybody who knows anybody with responsibility in the public service knows that they are greatly concerned about this totally unnecessary, unjustifiable proliferation of jobs for the sake of accommodating people, which runs counter to every priority of good Government at this time.

We want to signal to the people that the Government will continue to act consistently, as it has done since 1987, and reduce unnecessary demands on public expenditure. Already, this Government has gone, to say the least, contrary to that particular obligation by signposting and announcing that it is going to increase public expenditure by 6 per cent. Apparently, it will be popular, but it will be very irresponsible.

These two Ministers of State — their names and personalities do not interest me — with their accoutrements in terms of the ministerial office and the expenses and travel expenses for programme managers and advisers, will cost not less than £1 million per appointment, which we are being asked to sanction today. I would not have objected if they had pointed out some of those expenses during the last coalition Government, because I was offended by some of them and I expressed my views then.

Some might attempt to say that the Minister's salary is only £40,000, but it should not be forgotten that there is also a whole range of expenses which will not be disclosed in the salary. There will also be extra staff, overnight expenses, travel expenses around constituencies and up and down the country — that abuse existed in the last coalition but in this instance the abuse will be multiplied. We had better tell the Irish people that we are talking about at least £1 million per person appointed by this proposal. Do we honestly think that we can justify that? Do we really believe that we can justify that before we ever come to the other office holders?

The acid test is whether this Government would submit this proposal to the judgment of the people. Would it dare to do that? Would it dare to appeal on public platforms, offending people's intelligence with the specious and false arguments which the Minister of State, Deputy Hogan, advanced here and the Minister, Deputy Quinn, advanced in the Lower House? I regret to see honest men being contaminated — and I use that word deliberately — by those specious arguments. The Minister of State, Deputy Hogan, knows the mood of the people. I would like to see him present what he has presented here in a pub in Callan or in consultations in the GAA club. Would they say "Yes, Phil, that is very honest of you"? He knows well what they would say to him.

This Government has already attempted to circumvent the Constitution by appointing Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, to sit in Government without being a member of Government. There is one good reason the maximum of 15 was included in the 1937 Constitution. The Leader of the House will recall that the provision under the Executive Council of the Free State was for ten. The maximum eventually became 15 but there was a good reason for that number. It was clearly in the minds of the people who adopted that proposal that those who were in Government referred to those who sat in Government to take decisions. This is the only thing that was understood from it. However, we now have Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, nominated to sit in Government, whatever that represents, without being a member of Government. Did the Constitution enacted by the Irish people ever advocate such an abomination? To say that it would be contrary to the spirit if not the letter of the Constitution is to make a most kind judgment.

In respect of Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte — to quote his own phrase — the foundations of the State are being undermined in order to enable him to share in the spoils of what turned out to be a totally unexpected treasure trove, namely, the bizarre, unexpected and unprecedented circumstances which gave rise to the fall of the last Government. I hold no brief for those circumstances; I have not done so and will not do so now.

Mr. Hogan

The Senator is being selective.

Mr. O'Kennedy

However, the fact is that this Government does not exist under the mandate of the Irish people, although I do not reject it for that reason. This Government did not arise from the decision of the people——

Mr. Manning

Is the Senator saying that the last Government did?

Mr. O'Kennedy

If the Senator wants my honest view on that, I would say no, except that it followed an election. It was not my interpretation that the last Government was——

Mr. Manning

Sorry, Senator, I will not interrupt.

Mr. O'Kennedy

——in accordance with the wishes of the Irish people. However, it followed an election. We must be honest and I do not suggest that others would not be capable of something similar, but we will undermine the confidence of people in our democracy. We all know what happened and it has been stated in the Lower House. Would anybody say otherwise in private, personal conversation outside the Chamber? We all know the reason the number has been increased to 17. Those jobs must be found to accommodate the demands of the members of the parties going into coalition and every person knows this honestly in his or her heart. However, we ask honest people to come into the House and present the opposite in specious argument. This is an abuse of the House. Our attempt to offend the intelligence of the people by reference to the national interest is a great abuse of the people.

The credibility of Government has been all too severely tested in recent times. This new Administration instead of attempting to restore this essential confidence, of which there was a need to restore and build on, is from the start offending the people's intelligence. It is ignoring and offending the national interest when the restoration of public confidence in public figures should be its first priority. It is going the other way at a time when the Government should be giving an example in restraint and responsibility, although I do not agree that Ministers should reduce their salaries. That is a nonsense story and I am honest enough to say so because that is also a specious argument. If these people are worth inclusion, if these people are given responsibility, their pay should be commensurate with responsibilities undertaken by people outside. We have enough problems getting good people for Government so I am not attempting to appeal to the public mood or media in that sense.

When the Government should be giving a lead in restraint and responsibility controlling totally unnecessary, wasteful public expenditure, it is doing exactly the opposite. It is giving an example of lavish and unjustifiable expenditure in this Bill. I challenge the Government and the incoming Ministers to outline the full cost of their offices and staff.

I will return to the role of Minister of State, Deputy Doyle. I could not understand Minister of State, Deputy Hogan, when he said he noted that nobody had raised questions about Minister of State, Deputy Doyle's responsibilities. I will raise questions because it is a total and utter nonsense.

One should add the cost of advisers, office staff, transportation, drivers, programme managers, etc., when calculating the cost of the appointment of these two individuals. I am prepared to face the Irish people anywhere and on any platform and tell them the position. No one here would dare to do that because they know the Irish people would not accept that type of cynicism.

It is proposed to spend an extra £2 million here while we preach sacrifice and restraint to the workers in Packard Electric and elsewhere. I welcome the initiatives taken by the Government and the Minister, Deputy Bruton and Minister of State Rabbitte, for whom I do not have, to say the least, unqualified admiration because his consistency is not my type of consistency. Nevertheless, I welcome the success of their efforts in the Packard Electric discussions, although there must be an abiding cynicism in Tallaght and elsewhere in the last number of weeks about the restraints and disciplines they are expected to provide in contrast to what is being done to enable Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte in particular, to have the perks of office that he demands as a price for the Coalition. It is extraordinary for the Government to describe this as strategic management. It uses all types of officialese jargon to attempt to give a presentation — strategic management indeed. It would be much more honest to describe it as it is, cynical manipulation and this should be put in capitals.

For some extraordinary reason, Minister of State Hogan seems to think that Minister of State Doyle's appointment was not questioned. I cannot accept that. An example of this cynicism is the appointment of Deputy Doyle — not in her personal persona, I am not interested in that — as Minister of State in three different Departments. In what is certainly an affront to the Oireachtas, I understand that the Minister of State Designate, if one may call her that although there is no such title, is already describing herself on her notepaper as Minister of State in the Departments included here. This is an example of arrogance of the most extreme nature. She has been appointed Minister of State in the Departments of the Taoiseach, Transport, Energy and Communications and Finance. She will have three different areas of responsibility, including three different parts in the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications. We are looking at five different areas of responsibilities for this wonder woman — it does not matter whether it is a wonder woman or a wonder man. All this is presented in these specious arguments as coming under the shelter of what we are told are a number of initiatives in general public service reform. Public service reform umbrella is in quotation marks in Minister Quinn's speech. Where there are already Ministers of State operating in the Taoiseach's Department, we will have a Minister flitting from one office to the other — three different Departments with five different responsibilities.

We and the public are being asked to believe that this is all in the cause of strategic management and public service reform. They would have a better chance of getting a response from the people if they admitted they are in a different position with a three party Coalition and, understandably, there are demands and expectations, and they require to make provision for more offices than the previous two party Coalition. The people would start to respect such honesty; they would understand it. The Irish people are not fools and they would agree it was more difficult but not if it is presented as public service reform.

Does anyone think for a minute that even Deputy Doyle will be able to do a meaningful, consistent co-ordinated job flitting between three different Departments which have no direct interconnecting link? I do not mean in terms of telephone links but their constitutional responsibilities — the Departments of the Taoiseach, Transport, Energy and Communications and Finance. Incidentally, I served in two of them — Finance and what was then Transport and Power — and, apart from the collective responsibility of Government, I saw nothing in common between the Department of Transport and Power and the Department of Finance.

However, now it will all be co-ordinated. If that is to be the Minister of State's role, how will that be consistent with the role of the Taoiseach? Will he be tripping over Deputy Doyle or she tripping over him? Will she be tripping over the Minister for Finance or will the Minister for Finance be tripping over her? What is Minister Lowry's role — I congratulate him on his appointment — in all of this?

Mr. Hogan

He will be very busy.

Mr. O'Kennedy

I wish to be serious about this.

Mr. Hogan

He will be busy in North Tipperary.

Mr. O'Kennedy

I wish him the best; he and the people of Tipperary know that. He will now have a third of a Minister of State responsible for transport, energy and communications. For what purpose? Does anyone believe there is any justification for this under the umbrella of public service reform?

Nobody will argue against a major drive for western development and rural renewal. I was involved in some such initiatives in one form or another — the rural development programme, the disadvantaged areas, etc; there is much more to it than that. The public will not and does not believe a Government which suddenly discovered its importance, coincidentally after its proposal to appoint Deputy Carey as Leas-Cheann Comhairle was frustrated. The Government should not demean and downgrade itself by presenting a specious argument as the reason. Coincidentally, the extension of the remit of the Western Development Partnership Board is to include County Clare — a county I know well and love; a county where I have seen a spirit of renewal and drive since my days in St. Flannan's in the late 1940s to the early 1950s and where I see what economic renewal really means.

Are we now asked to believe the whole Shannon complex, including Newmarket-on-Fergus, Ennis and up to north Clare, where there is a vigorous confidence on the part of the people, is in the same character of disadvantage as, say, Leitrim, north-west Mayo or west Galway? Are the people of Clare being asked to believe that? They do not accept it. While the extension of the remit of the Western Development Partnership Board to include Deputy Carey's constituency in Clare may be welcome, even in parts of that historic and progressive county, everyone knows that the appointment, even in Clare — and Claremen are the shrewdest and deepest philosophers of all — will be greeted with cynicism for what it is.

It is not right to offend the people of Clare in presenting in the space of a day or two a sudden awareness of the need to expand and extend the Western Development Partnership Board, and give the benefit of it to County Clare. Clare did best when a Taoiseach like Seán Lemass and a great Clareman like Brendan O'Regan appealed to their commitment and ability and their sense of drive and confidence, and there was a total change in the culture and economy of Clare. It does not need such nonsense as being included under the umbrella of the Western Development Partnership Board.

I am prepared to acknowledge mistakes were made on our side, but the basis of parliamentary democracy is slowly being eroded by the proliferation of office holders in a way that undermines the relationship between the Executive and Parliament. That relationship is an essential part of the balance in our Constitution but it is being undermined, if not even cast aside. The Oireachtas should not approve these two extra appointments, in addition to the appointments — and this is part of the same undermining — of 66 extra officers of Oireachtas committees to keep those who have not got ministerial jobs happy because they will get other perks.

I have been in the Oireachtas since 1965 and everybody knows that the Government of the day, in any event, exercises a dominant influence on its own parliamentary backbenchers, and has always done so but that dominant influence will become, as a consequence of this, a totally overwhelming and oppressive burden on the exercise of parliamentary democracy.

We all know that democracy is based on the separation of powers, on Parliament, Government and Judiciary, and some of what has been done recently has not done much to maintain the respect for that separation, particularly in respect of the Judiciary. We have now reached a point where that most essential role of parliamentary representative is being undermined, and the courage and independence required from each elected representative to the Houses of the Oireachtas is being totally undermined because of the expectation of office or the offer of the fruits of office. It is a sad day for parliamentary democracy.

There are few survivors of what was an honourable role of honest, consistent backbencher. The Government backbencher has now become an endangered species because he pays the penalty for following the scent of the wrong herd leader at the wrong time. It is not, incidentally, confined to the party currently in Government. This endangered species has been a feature of governments in recent times. It is a sad commentary on what is an essential and privileged role in Irish life, that is, being an elected Member, a backbencher, in this House.

What status do we think we are now giving to backbenchers who have no other responsibility to their constituents? What respect do we think those people will have for their representatives who have been left aside? Do we not honestly know that this small minority of honest men and women — not many women are included in this category in this instance — have been left aside? The same applies to spokesmanships in Opposition because I am against that nonsense as well, and have always been. What signals are we giving to the people who elect those that are left aside as to their qualities or capabilities? Anyone who is interested in and concerned about parliamentary democracy will know that we are undermining the status of the Deputy in those constituencies. The vast bulk of the Deputies now have a job in one form or another but there are some isolated Members who do not. That is an outrageous offence to a parliamentary representative but this Government is making the existing condition, which is bad enough, much worse and we then wonder why young people will not get involved in public life.

There were times here when the backbencher, far from being endangered, was a very healthy and vigorous species. Some of the most vigorous, deep rooted, high quality people I know never expected to come into or sought preference by way of Executive office — I could name countless numbers of them — but were totally satisfied to discharge what is, in fact, a basic privilege, that of being an elected representative in Dáil Éireann. We are now giving signals to the young people who come here from day one — and this is rife throughout this House and everyone knows it — that they can name their price. If any changes are coming up, they had better get on the right side at the right time. Others may have waited ten or 15 years, but if they are wise and shrewd young men or women, they will do nothing like that; they will not be that foolish. They will get aboard early.

The kind of responsibility and solidarity that we expect from parties and democracy is being undermined, and we all know it. I have seen it being undermined in my 29 years in these Houses because of the proliferation of officeholders, and I regret that it has happened. I will trace this development over those years and the numbers involved initially because I think it is a matter of significance. If someone is going to tell me that the healthy state of democratic representation I knew and appreciated when I came here 29 years ago is still a feature now, I will tell them that they are again engaging in specious argument. One of the reasons for this is the kind of measure we are now being asked to adopt today and I resent it in the interests of parliamentary democracy.

I acknowledge that inter-party coalitions have pressures that do not arise for single party Government. For that reason, in terms of the post and the responsibility, inter-party coalitions in that sense are nothing if not consistent in the expansion of the numbers of officeholders. Senator Manning, as a student of political and constitutional law and political history, will bear out all the facts that I now propose to quote.

Until the first inter-party Coalition Government came into office in 1948, there had never been more than ten Cabinet Ministers — I have the full list here and I will go through it for each year — even though the Constitution at that time provided for a maximum of 15 Ministers. The maximum was always there to accommodate what might be necessary in the future — a very wise provision — but there had never been more than ten Ministers, either under the Executive Council of the Irish Free State or under the Constitution and Government under Fianna Fáil when it came into office in 1932.

The price paid for that first inter-party coalition — perhaps I am one of the few Members who remembers it, albeit as a youngster — set the precedent for inter-party Government ever since. It is a matter of record that for the first time one had the appointment of three extra Cabinet Ministers, bringing the number from ten to 13, which at that time represented an increase of 30 per cent. The price for subsequent coalitions was to increase the complement even further. It was the second coalition in——

Mr. Manning

1954.

Mr. O'Kennedy

——that for the first time, increased the number of Government Ministers to the maximum of 15 allowed under the Constitution. Twice we had Coalition Governments making the maximum number of appointments. Why? Let us face the reality — and this is a much more cynical exercise this time. There were so many people to be accommodated that, irrespective of whether the Administration was operating effectively — I will not go back into that argument — it can be argued that the Fianna Fáil Governments, both before and after those inter-party Governments, operated at least as efficiently as the coalitions. It was there that we saw the beginning of the increase in the number of officeholders. The precedent had been set and it has been followed consistently by all inter-party coalitions ever since.

When the Fianna Fáil Government returned to office in 1951, after the 1948-51 Coalition Government, it reduced the number of Ministers. However, the inter-party Government of 1954 restored that number to 13. In subsequent years, the complements of Cabinet Ministers under Fianna Fáil remained at 14 until the next inter-party Coalition in 1973 came into office and the price for that Coalition was to increase the number to the full complement of 15 Ministers for the first time.

It has to be acknowledged that the Fianna Fáil Government of 1979, out of character but also out of line with the needs of public administration, increased the number of Ministers of State for the first time to 15. That was clearly unwarranted by the demands of office at the time. It was because again the expectations of individuals who happened to follow the right leader at that time had to be satisfied. I have to express some degree of satisfaction that on returning to office in March 1982 — incidentally the number remained at that level during the following Coalition Government — the Fianna Fáil Government under the leader who appointed the 15 Ministers reduced the complement of Ministers of State to ten, which was very desirable. However, the inter-party Government of November 1982, in its consistent fashion, again restored the maximum number of 15 because there was so many of the boys around.

Mr. Manning

I think the history of this is slightly different. They were not filled but they were not abolished.

Another part of the deal is the establishment of a record number of 17 Oireachtas committees, with 68 additional jobs over and above those available to Members before this reform. What kind of reform is that? I have had my privilege, I may have some more, I do not know, it is a matter for the people. It is a great privilege to be a Member of the Oireachtas and a member of the Government. This kind of approach — I am not saying this as an opinion, everyone of us in this and the other House honestly knows it — is creating a totally undesirable attitude among Deputies, in particular younger ones. We all know — we say it in social chats with each other — that the scene has changed and that as soon as Deputies come here they want to be Ministers. Why? It is because we have created that totally false and unreasonable expectation by creating these extra jobs and perks. When young people come in, from day one they want a share of the action. Previously, people were ready to serve their time for some years and absorb and witness with respect the status and example of those from all sides of the Dáil who served in Government. That day is gone. The readiness to serve one's time as a Deputy for a number of years to acquire the experience to fit one for ministerial office is no longer a feature of Dáil Éireann. This Bill will ensure that, if it was a feature in recent times it will be totally and utterly eradicated.

I have said my piece and I hope that what I have attempted to do in upholding the standards of public life and honesty will have made some little contribution.

Mr. Manning

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Hogan, to the House. He is coming back to the Seanad but not as he knew it because when he was a Member of this House we were exiled in the ante-room while this beautiful building was being restored. As a young Senator, Deputy Hogan, was given the awesome task of dealing with the Companies Bill which was one of the longest, most complicated Bills that has ever gone through this House. It began its life in the Seanad and such was his performance that when the Bill finally went to the Lower House an entire committee had to be set up to do what he had done in Opposition. The Minister is welcome back to the House.

Looking back over the past 20 or 30 years of Irish politics, the one constant theme in Irish public life has been that both the Government and the Oireachtas have been engaged in an ongoing process of reform and redefinition. It has not always been easy or well thought out, and at all stages it has met with fierce resistance from those most immediately concerned. This has happened as our society and our public structures of administration have been transforming themselves from parliamentary and administrative structures designed to meet the needs of the late 19th century. They were brilliantly designed but not to meet the needs of the 21st century and the very complex multinational, multi-dependent, international type of society which we have now become. The proposal in this short and very clear Bill, is part of that process of reform and evolution.

Two principles underline what the Bill sets out achieve. The first of these is that Governments should be given the flexibility and freedom to decide how best to conduct their business. The Constitution, as Senator O'Kennedy said, prescribes the size of the Cabinet in a way that I and others could argue is probably too restrictive. Perhaps, as the Senator argued, it is fundamentally a wise decision, but one way or the other, the Constitution limits the options open to any Government as to how it organises its multifarious tasks. As a result we have seen a growth in the number of Departments of State not out of caprice but because real needs had to be met.

At one stage in the 1980s we had one Department with four different functions: industry, commerce, trade and tourism; four very distinct areas all of great importance yet under one Minister. Clearly ways have to be found to delegate, to ensure that there is leadership for the major functions which Governments have to carry out. More importantly, responsibilities have to be delegated to provide second tier leadership within the overall context of Government policy. The junior Minister, or Minister of State, is there to fulfil that role, and the position has now become an accepted and a vital part of the way in which this State organises its public business. It is there especially to ensure leadership in specific designated areas.

Nobody questions the principle of Ministers of State. Government would find it hard to function in this extraordinarily complex age of Government without the Ministers of State. I certainly do not subscribe to the view that Ministers of State are powerless consolation prizes. Contrary to what Senator O'Kennedy said, there are no sinecures or soft options. Ministers of State work extraordinarily long hours, they have specific designated tasks to do and are answerable to hard task masters, but whatever one would say about any of the Taoisigh of recent years, nobody would say other than that each one was a demanding task master of those to whom he entrusted responsibility.

Each Government also has to be free to judge for itself what is the best way in which it can organise itself most effectively to carry out its particular mandate. Senator O'Kennedy made much reference to the history of the evolution of Ministers in this country. At the foundation of the State, President Cosgrave, at a time of very small Government, could make do with four or five Parliamentary Secretaries. That was when virtually the entire Civil Service could be contained in the back pages of Flynn's Parliamentary Companion. There were two, three or four senior civil servants in each Department, and two or three junior people coming in would make up the intake every three or four years. It was a time of small, simple Government. Maybe some people would like to get back to that type of Government, but it is impossible in the complex age in which we now find ourselves.

Mr. de Valera increased the numbers slightly when he came in. However, he too was extremely prudent in any extension or expansion of Government because, in spite of the other differences of the time, there was a remarkable similarity of outlook among the founding fathers of this State across the two major parties as to the nature and role of Government and the extent to which it should properly be involved in trying to manage the economy, create jobs or act as an engineer of social change. There was broad agreement that Government should be small but the world moved on.

Senator O'Kennedy made the point that Mr. de Valera kept the numbers down, which he did. However, in the 1940s some of the Parliamentary Secretaries, in effect, ran what are now full Departments of State. Dr. Conor Ward, who is remembered largely, and I think unfortunately, for the tribunal to which he gave his name, was one of the strong reforming Ministers of that time. As Parliamentary Secretary he virtually ran the Department of Health during those years. It is clear from the records that had Mr. de Valera been returned in 1948, he would almost certainly have created further Ministries and Conor Ward would have become a full Minister. These are just historical sidelights arising from some of the points made by Senator O'Kennedy.

Senator O'Kennedy — and I say this with respect — was slightly selective in his writing of the subsequent history of these developments. Mr. Jack Lynch increased the number of Parliamentary Secretaries from seven to ten and changed their names to Ministers of State. He was right to do that. It was at a time of important development and expansion. He increased the number by 40 per cent. In 1979, Mr. Haughey increased the number of Ministers of State from ten to 15, which was a 50 per cent increase. His failure to nominate five other Ministers in 1982 was not because he had abandoned that or wanted to return to ten Ministers of State; it was something he never quite got around to doing.

These proposals to extend the number of Ministers of State and to, in effect, double the number of Ministers of State over a short three year period by two successive Fianna Fáil Taoisigh were not criticised at the time by Fianna Fáil or by Deputy O'Malley or Senator Harney who were then members of Fianna Fáil. Any sensible person could see that in light of our membership of the European Community and expanding public expectations of the role of Government, it was necessary to ensure that political control and leadership increased with the growing expansion of the various Departments.

The current proposal is no different and is, in fact, much more modest than what was done by both Mr. Lynch and Mr. Haughey. It is on a much smaller scale. It may well be that a future Government will reduce the number of Ministers of State from 17 to 15 or, as Deputy Harney is proposing, from 17 to eight. If it does, so be it. It is important that the Government itself is given the freedom, in a limited way, to judge for itself how best to organise its structures and resources to carry out its mandate. A Government must be free to do that and a Government must be the best judge of what it is doing and on what it does. The Government will ultimately be judged by our sovereign masters, the electorate.

Let Government at least have the freedom to organise their business in the way best suited, in their view, to achieving the ends which they set themselves at the beginning of their term of office. Future Governments can change all or part of it. All this legislation proposes is that this Government has the freedom of action, which both Mr. Lynch's and Mr. Haughey's Governments had, to decide how best to dispose of the resources it thinks are necessary to do its work. That is an important principle.

The second principle underlying this legislation has already been covered by the Minister and the speeches in the other House yesterday. I am not sure whether it is more a principle or a recognition of reality. An important aspect of all modern Government and modern life is the enormous degree of overlap and interdependence and the impossibility of compartmentalising topics or subjects into specific watertight Departments.

Last evening we had a splendid debate on the drug situation. In the course of that debate it became clear that the Departments dealing with this subject range from the Departments of Health, Justice, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Education to even Defence. All these Departments are involved in one way or another in trying to tackle this problem. Likewise yesterday we had an interesting debate on the task force on long term unemployment. Again we saw the range of State agencies and Departments involved in tackling each of these major problems.

Modern Government requires, as never before, a level of co-ordination of function. It requires leadership, not always at the top levels but at specific levels in a task oriented or specific problem oriented way. It requires political leadership to bring together the various strands, ensure that effective targets are set and that there is proper monitoring. We must ensure the presence of the drive, energy and the leadership which only an elected politician can bring to what is a political task.

I do not apologise for the appointment of extra Ministers of State. The tasks are worth doing and most involve co-ordination and require drive, energy and leadership. Senator O'Kennedy spoke about the changing nature of the composition of the House, which I will address presently. It is not altogether a bad thing that we have many hungry, ambitious young politicians who are eager and anxious to make their mark. Among Ministers of State especially we find that the challenges set for them are challenges which can, if they fail, make them political has beens or, if they succeed, bring them into the Cabinet and the top levels of Government.

Setting these targets will ensure that drive and energy will be applied under tough task masters to ensure that the work is done. In that sense the role of co-ordination which underpins much of what the Minister of State is about is a vital one. I would not be at all sorry if there were more Ministers of State because the price to be paid is cheap if results are achieved, targets met and if at the end of the day the quality and standard of public administration and public service is higher.

The task proposed for Deputy Carey in western development is enormous. The need is self evident on all sides of the House. There are enough reports on the west and saving the west to fill a sizeable library. What is needed is action, co-ordination and somebody with a specific brief to bring it all together and gain recognition at Government level that there is a job to be done and that it is necessary for one person to take and drive all of this.

I will not repeat what the Minister has said as I intend to keep to short time limits to enable as many speakers as possible to contribute early in the day. The role outlined by the Minister for Deputy Doyle is one which is crying out for leadership. Unless there is one person with a specific role on the strategic management initiative, it is not going to get the energy and drive which it requires. I do not want to be personal in this debate but I cannot think of anybody better suited than Deputy Doyle to give it that lead and energy and even a bit of bullying and hectoring if it is necessary to ensure the job is done.

These are two vital tasks which face the new Ministers of State. They are real jobs. Real structures and real leadership are required. They reflect the Government's concern on specific issues. I would say simply to give the Government the freedom. Let it be the best judge of what it thinks are the structures needed and then judge the Government and in two and a half or three years' time.

If the next administration, which may well be the same as this administration, believes that it has not been successful, let them change it. If they believe it has been very successful let them increase the number of Ministers of State. This has not come down on tablets of stone. The number 15 is not some immutable magic number. It could be 13, ten or 20, so let us judge it on what is achieved when these new changes are made.

I want to address my remaining remarks to another point which was made at some length by Senator O'Kennedy. These changes are taking place at a time of unprecedented reform in the Houses of Parliament and in the structure of Government. This process of parliamentary reform has been going on in different ways since the 1980s. There have been different degrees of speed and urgency given to the process.

In the 1980s a range of new committees were set up. Some of them worked while others did not. The Seanad has been greatly excluded from the process of overall Oireachtas reform for reasons which do not reflect on my predecessor in this office but rather on the general backward position in which we have found ourselves.

I believe — and I will argue against Senator O'Kennedy on this — that committees are at the heart of any efficient and relevant Parliament. We could take any Parliament in Europe which gives job satisfaction to its members and where they feel they are doing a real job. For example, let us consider Germany's Parliament, which is probably the most efficient of all the Parliaments in present day Europe. The work of its Parliament centres around committees. This means that members are better informed and have access. The public can attend those committees and make its case. There is an interrelationship between interest groups, the public and so on and the members of Parliament. Members of Parliament are involved in consultation at early stages in the process of legislation. This is all done through the elaborate system of committees which is put on a statutory basis in the Parliament. Committee chairpersons are powerful people in the German Parliament.

There is a fundamental principle here which says that Parliament is important. Parliament is not a rubber stamp. If there are people in Parliament with independent positions of power based on their leadership of a specific committee and if the chairperson of the committee on foreign affairs is listened to and has a point of view counter to the view of the establishment, as expressed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the skies will not fall. That is a good development because it is Parliament asserting its role and a place for itself.

Senator O'Kennedy spoke with great eloquence on the changing nature of the backbencher. It was, if I may say so, a patrician contribution from someone who has spent, in a distinguished way, most of his political life in office. I am 14 years in politics, but I will never hold office. There are many Members in politics who will not hold office and who will be excluded from Cabinet for reasons not always based on merit. It is a question of the wrong time or place, of an age glut or backing the loser in a political contest. All these factors can rule people in or out of Government. That system exiles a large number of politicians into a position of virtual uselessness.

Senator O'Kennedy spoke at great length about the backbenchers of old. He was right and I remember some of them. We paid tribute to one yesterday, Mr. Phil Burton, and the other House paid tribute to Mr. Philip Brady. These people were backbenchers who were happy to be so and who had a good solid role there. I was a Government backbencher for many years in the other House and there is no more frustrating job in the entire world. There is no outlet for one's energy, ability or ideas. One is consigned to vote with one's party and one cannot speak out because it may cause trouble. In the absence of a committee system, a great deal of energy will be unused, misfocused and it will deny the elected person the feeling that they are playing a meaningful and real role. Meanwhile, a range of tasks which can usefully be done are left undone because the system is not there to accommodate it.

In spite of what Senator O'Kennedy said, I make no apologies for an increase in the number of committees. Plenary sessions will always be important. Parliament will always be a theatre where the great drama of public life is acted out. However, on a day to day basis the work of Parliament will be done in the committees. I make no apology for saying that this Government will increase the number of committees. I also make no apology for saying that there will be full Seanad representation proportionate to our size on each of these committees and that each group in this House will have representation on them. That is the only way forward if this Parliament wants to move itself into the 21st century.

In modern public life we have seen the growth of the multinationals and of Government. We have seen the EU take control of more and more functions of Government and we have seen the growth of pressure groups, trade unions, farmers organisations, business organisations, etc., which are capable of directly influencing Government. However, the one set of institutions which have been left behind in this process are the Houses of the Oireachtas and the politicians. I welcome what I see as a fight back for a relevant role for elected politicians in the working out of public policy in public life through greater and better committee systems. I am sure that Senator O'Kennedy's view is not the view of most people in his own party who also want to see this happen. More progress was made in the other House in the two years of the last Government towards proper committees than was made in the previous 30 years. In the next two years I want this House to participate and to become a beneficiary of this development and a leader in it.

There are other aspects of reform which I will not discuss now, but we have a unique opportunity at present. We have a Government which is committed to parliamentary reform, as was the last Government, and I am not making party points here. We now find ourselves in a position in this House where, because of the voting arithmetic, we will be taken seriously. There is a commitment and I want other areas of politics to change quickly. A report on the library and information services is waiting to be implemented and I want that to be made a priority. I want the debate on the review of structures and procedures, which was held here, reopened for a short, sharp debate, rather than reinventing wheels.

We can look at our various structures while always keeping one principle in mind, that is, to allow participation which is meaningful, gives satisfaction and which shows the independence, as far as possible, of the thinking in this House. If that means changing procedures on grievance time, on a topical hour, on a range of other issues or, as I will want, introducing more legislation in this House, then we should do it. I propose to set up a committee, not the Committee on Procedure and Privileges which is not suited to this task, but a committee which could take these proposals and put them into effect, I hope, in the next two or three months. At least we now have an opportunity to do for this House what has not been done for a long time and to bring about more change here, perhaps in six months or a year, than has happened in 30 or 40 years. The credit for that is not ours. History is a funny thing because there are times when the tide is with one to do certain things and that is the position we find ourselves in now.

The legislation going through the Houses is part of a wider package of Government reform. It contains, as I said, one important principle and practice. The principle is that a Government should be given the freedom to decide how best to carry out its own mandate and let it be judged on that. There is a growing need for proper co-ordination and second tier leadership to achieve specific tasks. These are the two principles underlying this Bill and I commend it to the House.

Professor Lee

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. Tá súil agam go bhfeicfimíd é go minic sa Teach seo sna blianta atá romhainn.

It is rare and unprecedented for me to rise in the knowledge that someone somewhere may be listening to something I say. It obliges me to speak with a degree of discretion which is not my wont. The first question I put to myself in looking at this proposal is whether the creation of the new Ministers of State has the potential to improve the quality of Government in this country. I look at them on their own merits. As regards the proposal for a Minister from the west, I am reminded of the good debate we had in this House when A Crusade for Survival was published about a year ago. At that time it contained a proposal that a Minister should be appointed for western development and to oversee the implementation of the recommendations in the report. That was rejected out of hand by the then Government and the then Minister, who said that “The report calls for the appointment of a Minister for the west but in view of the functional rather than geographic basis for ministerial responsibility, this is not a feasible option.” That was the dismissal of the recommendation for a Minister for the west and that was the end of the matter as far as an appointment was concerned.

Some of us disputed the justification of that approach at the time — I disputed it myself — because the implications of that sentence, "in view of the functional rather than geographic basis for ministerial responsibility, this is not a feasible option", when it is translated into simple English is that, irrespective of the problems of the west and the nature of the challenge confronting this country in the west, that must take second place to the convenience of Government organisation and of administration. That is not a principle I am prepared to accept as a basis for Government organisation.

I therefore have no difficulty in principle in accepting the idea of a Minister for the west — or for any place, such as inner cities or areas suffering from long term unemployment. As Senator Manning reminded us, we had a debate yesterday on long term unemployment during which it was argued that it was clustered heavily in a small number of difficult and awkward places and that it might be the case that there should be a Minister or Minister of State charged with responsibility for tacking that problem, which it would largely be a problem of place rather than a problem of sector.

As Senator Manning rightly said in the context of the drug problem, virtually none of the major problems confronting Government today neatly corresponds to the departmental divisions we have inherited. We must have Departments, but problems are in danger of being diagnosed and defined in a way which conforms to the administrative interests of the Department rather than on the basis of their merits.

Many of the major issues confronting us transcend departmental distinctions and cannot be solved adequately on the basis of task forces, however high-level those task forces may be. In the debate on the west I asked — as our task forces rise to degrees of elevation inconceivable in an earlier age — whether we ever had a low-level task force in Ireland. We will have stratospheric-level task forces before we are finished.

One has to contemplate seriously the question whether the organisation of Government should not be reviewed in order to see how the sectoral or functional organisation of Government, as the Minister put it, can best be reconciled with the fact that many of our problems relate to places or areas. They are not confined to the west; we have problems in many parts of this country which are exacerbated by the compartmentalised nature of decision making. In a village or small town the Department of Education may be proposing to rationalise the small school out of existence; the Department of Justice is doing the same to the small Garda station; An Post is doing the same to the small post office; the Price Waterhouse report purports to do the same to small Army barracks around the country.

Within their terms of reference those proposals may be justified, given the accounting policies of the individual Department; but, as we have said time and again, people do not live in sectors, we all live in places. When one adds up the sequential impact of the closure or downgrading of these types of institutions on villages, parishes and small towns, there can be a lethal subversive effect on the vitality and vibrancy of that small area, unless there is a commitment — not just a crisis commitment but a commitment to think about place and community in our society.

That is why I welcome the proposal to appoint a Minister for the west, because it will be the first time an attempt has been made to conceptualise problems in a perspective of place rather than a sectoral one. I do not know how successful it will be; only time can tell that, if it is approved. I am also sceptical about the motivation behind these proposals. Most of the specific criticisms on that point are perfectly justified.

On the other hand, one should ask about possible results as distinct from motives. It is possible for good results to emerge from the most misconceived of motives, just as it is possible for bad results to emerge from the purest of motives. If results were to be directly correlated with motives, our history would be very different.

Even in the definition of the west one can see the haste with which this proposal was put together. In the debate last year we had eloquent testimony from Senators from Clare, Kerry, Donegal and west Cork about how the problems diagnosed in the west in A Crusade for Survival were common in those areas also. Senator O'Kennedy made an eloquent plea for considering Clare as being at the cutting edge of the frontier of industrial progress and parts of that county are, happily, enjoying a degree of such progress, but large parts are not.

If one defines the west not as a geographical concept but in the way some of us tried to define it last year — that is to say, the west exists in this country where there is structural population decline — and one applies that criterion, then the west is not only Connacht west of the Shannon, or Connacht plus Clare but it is every county on the west coast, parts of west Cork. Even parts of west Limerick would come under that designation. Undoubtedly if Deputy Carey represented Kerry, Donegal or west Cork, those parts of the country would be magically transferred into the west for definitional purposes. However, at least the frontiers of the west are being slightly expanded because he comes from just outside the west as defined in A Crusade for Survival.

I welcome in principle the appointment of a Minister for the west. I hope it will be the first of a number of ministerial appointments to tackle problems identifiable with particular places, whatever those problems may be. It is not clear how successful this will be because the Minister will have a major problem co-ordinating the activities of the multiple Departments, groups. State-sponsored bodies, task forces, etc. which are involved. However, if this task is not taken on by someone with ministerial clout and if there is no effective monitoring system for evaluating its progress, those problems will fester even more than they would otherwise.

The problem of co-ordination and achieving coherent policy is fundamental and may be partly resolved in this case by a Minister for the west. That links with the appointment of Deputy Doyle, because one of her main tasks would be to achieve public service reform, whatever that is called and whatever acronym, such as SMI, is used at present. Public service reform must be the most thankless task any Member of Government could undertake.

Should I continue now or will I leave this until later?

An Cathaoirleach

You have two minutes remaining; you can speak until 1 o'clock.

Professor Lee

In that case I will elaborate. I am glad Senator Manning and Senator Roche are in the House because they will know what I am speaking about. For over 20 years we have had commitments to, proposals for and recommendations of public service reform. We had a Department of the Public Service which flourished, or at least survived, for something of the order of 14 years; it was abolished by Mr. Haughey when he returned to office in 1987.

I saw a certain amount of the work of that Department as a member of the public service advisory committee in the mid 1980s under the chairmanship of Dr. Devlin. It points to the frustrations involved in public service reform when I say I suspect we were the only committee in the history of the State to recommend its own abolition. We were so fed up with the waste of our time involved in trying to monitor and encourage public service reform that we looked at each other around the table and asked what we were doing making yet more recommendations which we knew would sink without trace in the — I will not use unparliamentary language — intestines of the Civil Service. Having decided we were wasting our time we recommended — not in a public way, because we did not want to make a fuss — to the Minister for Finance that we not be reappointed and that no one be appointed when the term of office of the committee expired. That is what happened. If anybody is thinking of putting a footnote to the sad history of public service reform in this country, I offer that vignette as an example of the frustration that can be felt by people outside who do not have to confront, face to face, the forces of resistance inside on a daily basis.

Sitting suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Manning

By agreement between the Whips, speeches will now be limited to 25 minutes. This does not include the contribution in progress of Senator Lee, which began under the old, unlimited dispensation.

Acting Chairman (Mr. Sherlock)

Is that agreed? Agreed. I call on Senator Lee to resume.

Professor Lee

Despite the fact that the restriction does not apply to me, I can guarantee that I will not exceed 25 minutes in terms of my total contribution, which leaves somewhere between ten and 15 minutes remaining. That will be the maximum for which I will speak.

I was speaking before lunch about the thanklessness of the task of public service reform, but it is an important task. It has no great public appeal in the sense that it cannot be sold as a spectacular public relations exercise or anything of that sort, but it is far more important to the good government of this country in the medium and long term than many of the policies and proposals that achieve a far higher media profile in the short term. I, therefore, believe it is right that there should be a Minister concerned primarily with public service reform.

I do not know what is the most effective way of achieving this because I am not familiar with the internal workings of Government. However, a priori, it is not necessarily a disadvantage for that Minister to hold office in a number of different Departments because one of the problems with the old Department of the Public Service was that it became, in a way, isolated from the mainstream of the Civil Service and of Civil Service culture. It may be that holding office in a number of Departments, exposure to a variety of different points of view and regular personal contact with a wider variety of public servants may contribute to the more effective discharge of that responsibility.

The personality of the individual is not entirely irrelevant in a case like this. In contrast to Senator O'Kennedy, I believe that the personality and calibre of the individuals concerned are relevant factors in assessing the appropriateness of these proposals. We are all familiar with Deputy Doyle's qualities and we have heard Senator Manning's tribute to the combination of delicatesse, politesse and finesse, which will naturally characterise her dealings with the public service and, no doubt, with her colleagues. For that reason among others, she could be an appropriate appointment in this context.

I am, therefore, disposed to approve these proposals on their individual merits. They are important posts, and maybe they should be full Ministers, or the jobs they have to do ought to be jobs for full Ministers in a properly conceived Administration. I envisage these posts becoming full ministerial posts in due course, following review of Government, if they prove effective in their current position or at their current status.

However, that is for the future. The proposals are inherently, sufficiently important to warrant consideration, even at that level, which makes me regret all the more that they did not feature — certainly the post in respect of the West — more prominently in the original programme for Government.

This leads to the general question as to whether we have too many Ministers of State in the first place, and whether we need new Ministers of State to discharge these responsibilities. My short answer is that I do not know. I place no special merit on any specific number of either Ministers or Ministers of State. That is a matter for judgment of the Government of the day in the light of the circumstances confronting it, in the light of the programme of work available and in the light of its conception of its role.

We have all heard Deputies in the other House, and perhaps some statements in this House, to the effect that 15 is too many. We have heard Senator O'Kennedy trace, very interestingly, the expansion of Government and the expansion of the number of offices since the foundation of the State. The question I put, because I do not believe there is any inherently correct number at any given time, and I was asking it of myself as the Senator was detailing the number of Ministries and of Ministers of State or of Parliamentary Secretaries of different times, is what correlation can be established between the number of office holders and the quality of performance of a Government?

The quality of performance of a Government is a subjective concept. We all have our own views about how any specific Government performed, but in my reading of the performance of successive Irish Governments since the foundation of the State, I can see no correlation between the size of Government and the quality of performance. We have had good Governments — good small Governments and good big Governments; we have also had bad small Governments and bad big Governments. The number of office holders is, itself, not the key factor, or even a central factor in determining the quality of Government performance. I suspect that the quality of leadership in Government would be far more important in determining how effectively the members of Government and the Parliamentary Secretaries/Ministers of State perform than the numbers themselves.

I therefore do not attribute to numbers the weight attributed to them by some speakers. In that sense I have no problem with having 17 Ministers of State rather than 15 Ministers of State, even though it may well be that some of the 15 Ministers of State are not types of posts that one would now establish if one were starting from a different base.

However, if there were to be a full review of the appropriateness of Ministers of State to their current positions — and it may well be that we should have full reviews in future, it may well be that we should have grilling of candidates for positions in future and it may well be that we should change our mechanism of dealing with these things — it would have to done in the context of an overall evaluation of candidates and not simply starting now with the two who happen to be coming on stream at present. In any event, one would have to evaluate, not them as individuals but the role of the offices that they and every other Minister of State holds if one wants to argue that 15 in itself is too many.

I have a certain difficulty accepting that 15 is, by definition, too many. I can see many areas of neglect in policy making in which a firmer political direction is badly needed. If there are too many Ministers of State, if some of those positions are sinecures, as has been said, then that points not to a lack of work, because the work is there, but to a maldistribution of appointments, a failure to think through the most effective structure of Government and the disposition of the ministerial resources within it. However, I find very difficult to believe that we are lacking in work.

It is very hard to know what the right number ought to be, even in any given circumstances. It is difficult to compare ourselves with other states, even other small states, without taking a number of factors into account which different people will evaluate differently. We, for instance, are a highly centralised State. We have an electoral system which, as all Members know, imposes enormous demands on the time of individuals, including the time of Ministers. If one is comparing the numbers we need to discharge governmental tasks properly with numbers in other states — our numbers are not particularly large, as far as I know, in comparative terms — one has to take into account the type of political structure and political culture within which our people operate.

In a sense one would expect the Irish Government to be bigger than Governments in other small states which are not as centralised and do not impose such demands on the time of Parliament, of Ministers of State or of Ministers in nursing their constituencies, so how one strikes the correct comparative balance is itself very difficult to assess in any abstract sort of way. While I take it that there may indeed be misallocation of human resources within the current structure of Government, that seems to me to be something that would have to be demonstrated. I hope that in the aspirations towards parliamentary reform which we have been assured are a central part of this Government's programme, such issues will be discussed in a reasonably detached manner without immediate threat to the position of anybody, because once there is a threat nothing can be addressed in a detached manner. Whether the overall structure of our Government as well as the overall structure of our public service, is now appropriate to the tasks confronting us at the end of the 20th century, I hope it will be a matter of sustained and systematic discussion during the course of this Government.

That obviously brings me to how I will cast my vote on this issue. I began yesterday morning reading the debates in the other House of the previous day with a reasonably open mind. My mind was fairly closed by last night and it has become even more closed in the course of this morning. I was taken by the criticisms of the motivation, the manner and the style by which these posts have emerged. Many of those criticisms are probably justified, but that does not in itself justify me voting against if I think the cause is itself justified.

I was depressed, I have to say, with the utter negativity of the tone of the Opposition contributions in the other House on this matter. However valid individual criticisms may have been of specific aspects, I found no constructive alternative thinking there, beyond a degree of complacency, which I utterly reject, about the suitability of our current arrangements for the good government of this country. I was taken aback to find in one Opposition speech the following statement:

At the outset of this debate I give this commitment on behalf of the Fianna Fáil party: we will repeal this legislation when we return to office after the next general election.

It may be that experience will prove that the legislation should be repealed but that can only be decided on the basis of experience. It cannot be decided in any objective manner a priori without experience of how the appointments actually work out. I find that approach to this type of legislation, where we ought to be transcending the specific issues involved in the individual cases, simply unacceptable from the perspective of somebody representing the type of constituency I represent.

There is a degree of trust in this Government involved in supporting the proposal. There is a degree of personal trust — I hope he does not mind my saying so — in the Leader of the House who has committed himself to a very active programme of Seanad reform and of contributing towards Oireachtas reform. I am taking that on trust. If, over the next six months to a year, it seems that this Government is not as serious as I believe the Leader to be personally about Oireachtas reform, I for one will not have the slightest hesitation in voting in principle, against other measures of this Government, but on this particular measure today I intend voting for the proposal.

Mr. Calnan

I welcome the Minister to the House in his new role.

Our Constitution allows for 15 members of Government and it is the function of the Houses of the Oireachtas to decide on the number of people to be appointed as Ministers of State. Let us not forget that back in the 1970s we had a different name for a Minister of State, it was Parliamentary Secretary; there were about seven of them at the time. It was found necessary by two successive Leaders of Government to increase those numbers from seven to ten Ministers of State and later to 15 Ministers. If it was necessary at the time I believe as a member of the Labour Party that it is necessary now, and I can speak objectively in the sense that the Labour Party had six Ministers of State in the Government from 1993 until recently, and in the new Government we have a similar number so we are not involved in anyone getting anything.

It was very unwise for Fianna Fáil to state that after the next election if they are in Government they will reduce the numbers again because in the European context at the moment our Ministers are going more and more to Europe. It is possible that, with the expansion of the power of the European Parliament. some of our Ministers might have to be in there in specific roles and it might be necessary for future Governments to further increase the numbers of Ministers of State. It is very unwise to try to predict the future. Areas of responsibility have been neglected in the past because Ministers have not been specifically assigned to them. Very often areas have been glossed over.

We must never forget the role of the public representative who has to deal with local matters at all times. Perhaps it is peculiar to this country but it is part of our heritage that if something is happening locally the people want to talk to the elected Member, and that is good for democracy. A Minister, a Minister of State, even the Tánaiste or Taoiseach can be required to be in his own constituency to deal with a local matter and it is necessary then to have more people involved in the Executive to carry out the functions properly.

The job that is proposed to be given to Deputy Carey is Minister of State at the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht. Due to the Government commitment to development of the West and rural renewal he is to be given responsibility for that as well. The last job alone would be enough for him, because our rural areas are being decimated and despite what has been said, this trend has not been reversed. I know having taught in a secondary school for 25 years that very few people who completed their education even at secondary level — I am not talking about people who went on to third level education — have come back into west Cork to work. I am talking about migration to the cities and the towns and going abroad.

There is a need, not only for a Minister of State but maybe in the future for a Minister to deal with those areas, because they have been neglected in the past. I come from west Cork and I know what has happened there. I said in a debate on the West that I do not want Deputy Carey to stick to Clare and Connaught. Donegal has similar problems and Kerry and west Cork are just as bad. We will be calling on him to come to our assistance as well. That was mentioned already by Senator Lee.

I am glad he has been given responsibility for the islands as a unit. I am chairman of the western committee and the islands committee in west Cork where there are inhabited islands off the coast. These include Oileán Chléire, Sherkin Island, Hare Island, Long Island, Whiddy Island, Beare Island and Dorsey Island. One of these islands is a Gaeltacht area — Oiléan Chléire. There is even a dividing line between those seven islands. Because one of the islands has Gaeltacht status, it is doing better than the others. I am glad that somebody is now taking responsibility for the islands off our coast.

From visiting and talking to people on the islands, I know about isolation. The cost of transporting cement blocks, slates, timber, etc., to build a house on an island is considerable. Piers, which I will deal with later, are also necessary for landing. I am also in favour of Deputy Carey's appointment, given the bishops' efforts in highlighting the problems in the west in A Crusade for Survival.

As regards Deputy Doyle's appointment, reform and co-ordination in the public service is necessary. Frequently at county council level a local councillor will look for a pier for an island. The county manager and the county engineer will state that it is their function up to a point and then is that of the Department of the Marine. Consequently, no pier is built. That is where we need co-ordination and it can be done with the strategic management initiative.

There was a school of home economics in my home town which existed on a voluntary basis since the 1930s where young girls were trained in farming and in various crafts. The school was called the school of home economics. When more grants became available from Departments, it had to deal with the Department of Agriculture because it was involved in agriculture and the Department of Education because it was a school, and it eventually closed down. That is why we need somebody to co-ordinate efforts. It was an excellent school which provided unique training. Because there were only two such schools in the country, it was not able to apply pressure to get money to keep going and consequently it closed down.

I now refer to libraries. In County Cork the running of libraries is a function of the local authority, although they are more closely related to schools. While the local authority, the Department of the Environment and the Department of Education make a contribution, our libraries are underdeveloped. Co-ordination is extremely important in this regard.

It is important that we appoint these Ministers and we must bear in mind that if it is necessary to appoint more, it should be done. Our role in Europe is important and we need someone there to look after matters. If that person is a Minister, it is right that his or her work should be done at home by a Minister of State.

Mr. Roche

I want to talk about pork-barrel politics and political patronage, because that is what this Bill is about. While I do not doubt the sincerity of those who have contributed, it has nothing whatsoever to do with public service reform, the needs of the people, the co-ordination of Europe, western development or reform, the islands, the highlands or the Gaeltacht. It has to do with — and everybody in this House knows — pork-barrel politics and political patronage.

A few weeks have passed since the document A Government for Renewal was published. In many ways this is a fine document which contains many good proposals and ideas which I strongly support, because many of them were put forward by Fianna Fáil in the draft programme for Government between the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil. The first pledge given to the people in the new Government's programme, A Government for Renewal, is to reform our institutions at national and local level and to provide service, accountability, transparency and freedom of information. The Bill before us is a cynical and absolute departure from both the spirit and the letter of that pledge. It is a good pledge which is breached in every regard by this Bill.

The Bill is about pork-barrel politics and political patronage and has more in common with the politics of Tammany Hall than the politics which should be espoused in a modern democratic State. It is decidedly not a reforming Bill. The Minister for Finance and the Minister of State, whom I welcome to the House and look forward to working with positively, and spokespersons for the Government parties are faced with an unenviable task in presenting this Bill. They are faced with the task of putting the best gloss possible on what many decent people in the Government parties must see as an unpardonable rip-off of the taxpayer.

Moreover, this is a rip-off which arises because of a unique combination of political opportunism and incompetence. The political reality is that we are dealing the problem of dealing out the goodies. When that problem was being resolved by this Government, the bus was too full to accommodate the two fine Deputies who have been nominated for these two Minister of State positions, so extra posts had to be conjured up.

The speeches from the Government side that sought to justify the action which the Seanad is expected to endorse today were interesting and bear some critical analysis. I do not want to be just negative, as Senator Lee said, because many of the things proposed for the two Ministers of State in this Bill are good. My argument is that we do not need 17 Ministers of State. The major presentations made by Government speakers on this issue are striking. They provide lengthy descriptions of the duties to be undertaken by the two additional Ministers of State. They do not provide one single cogent, logical argument for creating 17 Ministers of State.

The reality is that we do not need 17 Ministers of State, some would argue that we do not need 15. I agree with Senator Lee who said it is difficult to know precisely how many we need at any one time. It is not so long since the Fine Gael Party argued that we did not need more than ten Ministers of State. In December when Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party were in discussion on the formation of Government, there was no question of expanding the numbers of Ministers of State. It is not mentioned anywhere in the document produced by the two parties —The Programme for a New Partnership Government 1994 to 1997. In fact, the idea of expanding the number of Ministers of State is not dealt with, suggested or hinted at anywhere A Government of Renewal.

The policy documents of both parties are remarkably similar because, as we all know, one was forged out of the other — it was not simply a rib ripped out of the other. Any textual analysis would suggest that they are basically the same document with some small additions. Nowhere in either programme was there a suggestion that we needed two additional Ministers of State. The whole world knows that the Government has taken this unprecedented, indeed, breathtaking U-turn into the murky territory of political patronage simply for pragmatic reasons.

The first problem which presented itself after the programme for Government had been fashioned loomed in the bulky form of Deputy Rabbitte. Not able to give their new found friend of capitalism a seat at the Cabinet table, because the drafter of Bunreacht na hÉireann had, with a good deal of foresight, set a ceiling on ministerial appointments, the leaders of the nation had to conjure up a new super junior Ministry. Pragmatism, not high principles of public service reform, determined the creation of that new junior Ministry.

The situation in the case of Deputy Carey's half car is even more bizarre. We all know the truth of the situation. The Taoiseach, in one of the characteristic gaffes which make him so attractive to us on this side of the House, promised Deputy Carey, a good and sincere man, a job which was not vacant — the post of Leas-Cheann Comhairle. When Deputy John Bruton discovered that he had put his foot in it again he decided to resolve the difficulty. Unfortunately, he decided to solve the gaffe which he had made at the expense of the Irish taxpayer.

This is a matter which exercised the minds of those who prepared the Devlin report. I am surprised that Senator Lee did not refer to this. Their conclusion was that because of the importance and the scale of the task, reform of the public service must always reside with a senior Minister. Indeed, the Devlin report decided that the task was of such fundamental importance that a very novel proposal was put forward: it was decided to assign the task to a separate Ministry. That separate Ministry was to reside in the person who also held the Ministry for Finance. Thus, the Minister for Finance would also be the Minister for the Public Service. In the British case, the Fulton report pondered the same theme and concluded that the task was of such fundamental importance that it should reside with the Prime Minister.

As I said, neither the Fulton, Glasgow or Devlin reports nor any of the myriad reports and commissions worldwide which reported on the topic of public service reform have, to my knowledge, ever suggested that the task should or could prudently be assigned to a junior Minister who is tagged on as an afterthought to the phalanx of other Ministers. Without being unkind in any way to the junior Minister in waiting, Deputy Doyle, the reality is that the Government, having named public service reform as its number one pledge — remember, the number one pledge in A Government of Renewal is public service reform — has now decided to use that reform to get out of a political dilemma.

The Government's cynicism in this regard will not be lost on the public service. As we know, public service reform was stymied over the years because of behaviour factors within the public service, one of which was cynicism. If one is going to reform the institutions of this State, a degree of sacrifice is expected from the people who operate in those institutions. Their lives will be changed in some way and change in a bureaucratic structure is always unsettling. We are now asking the public servants of this State to bear all the sacrifices and that the whole issue of reform should be a way to increase the level of political patronage. That is not on and it will be seen in the most cynical light by public servants.

This is a Government which preaches transparency, accountability and openness; that is the new mantra. Let us see some transparency, openness and accountability in this particular regard. Even at this stage it is transparently obvious that the members of the Government are prepared to show an unprecedented willingness to pursue singlemindedly their own personal interests. It is also clear that they are openly cynical and willing to abuse the power which they hold.

I do not accept the proposition put forward by the Leader of the House, a man for whom I have absolute respect, or that put forward by Senator Lee, that we should in some way accept all of this on trust — suck it and see — and at the end of the day maybe it will be right or maybe it will be wrong. I believe that we must have higher standards of accountability in public life than that.

The Government is accountable to the people and to this House. I am amazed at how quickly politicians forget the pain of the ballot box. Only a few weeks ago I, like many Members of both Houses, walked the streets of Cork. It was a very interesting experience. One of the issues which came up time and time again was the anger of the people in both those constituencies at what they perceived as politicians feathering their own nests. In those by-elections, as in the by-elections in Dublin and Mayo, two of the parties in this Government — Democratic Left and Fine Gael — fanned the flame of public opinion in this regard.

In the Cork by-election, Fine Gael went to the extent of producing a special leaflet, which was, in my view, noxious and most disturbing. The leaflet castigated Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party for the Mercs and perks lifestyle which Fine Gael associated with the last Administration. The appointment of advisers and programme managers was savagely attacked in that document by Fine Gael. The party also singled out the Labour Party and the appointment of family members and friends to the State's payroll for savage attack.

I am on the record, before the Government changed, as stating that many of those appointments were imprudent in the extreme. Despite what it preached nine short weeks ago, the leading party in this Government is now willing to wallow in political patronage. It expects the Houses of the Oireachtas in this Bill to endorse and enlarge the pork barrel. The Fine Gael Party goes further. The Leader has given specific instructions that when it comes to the appointment of advisers and programme managers the primary consideration is to be their membership of the Fine Gael Party. If such an instruction had come from any other party in Irish politics, I have no doubt whatsoever, nor can any objective observer have any doubt, that the Fine Gael Party would rightly have been baying from the rooftops. The cynicism of Fine Gael in this matter is matched only by the brazenness of the junior party in Government, the Democratic Left.

In the same Cork by-election. Deputy Lynch, its successful candidate, advised the voters — and I quote from her literature — to get the promises from the then Government "in writing". Her party promised high standards but that was before they got their grubby hands on the levers of power and their fists in the taxpayers' pockets. If the Government believes what it has to say about transparency and accountability, I challenge the Minister here and now to give us the names of all the political advisers that he and his colleagues are appointing and to let us know the names of all the political programme managers, friends, relations and miscellaneous hangers-on from the three political parties in Government who are getting on to the public payroll and the full cost to the taxpayers of that army, in addition to the costs of the two offices being created in the Bill. There is a significant cost attached to the proposals in the Bill, yet we do not know what it is. No effort has been made to put an objective figure on it.

The appointment of two Ministers of State, in addition to 15 junior and 15 senior Ministers, is bad enough. However, it emerges that, in addition to the 32 ministerial appointments in the name of Oireachtas reform, 17 separate committees are to be established. I am on the record as a strong advocate of the committee system but I contest the idea that we need 17 committees. Moreover, I strongly contest the way in which the committees are being set up. It is clear that we have lost sight of what public service and Oireachtas reform in particular means. Most, if not all, of these 17 committees will have chairmen and convenors. As I understand it, they will receive payments in accordance with the Gleeson report.

We will have the unique position then where, under the guise of Dáil and public service reform, the patronage capacity of the Taoiseach and the Government will have extended to the point where almost 70 TDs — and perhaps one or two Senators, we do not know yet — will have additional allowances over and above their Dáil salaries. Given that Government parties control just over half of the Lower House, this means there will be something additional in this Dáil for virtually every member of the audience. It cannot be right that almost two-thirds of the membership of all the Government parties will have an additional stipend. I do not say that those people are not entitled to the full value for money from what is paid but it cannot be right. It will fuel and fire the cynicism which already exists about all politicians among the public. As of last night, there is evidence that the few poor souls who have been left out are to be looked after by appointments to bodies such as the Council of Europe, where they can pick up a few extra bob.

This all amounts to an unprecedented and absolutely unpardonable extension of political patronage. There is no precedent in the State for what is now happening. There can be no wonder that the people are growing increasingly sick and cynical of Irish politicians. The patronage does not stop within the four walls of Leinster House. We now know that there will be of the order of 75 posts of advisers, special advisers and programme managers to be added to the growing oil slick of political patronage. I am not one who has argued that Ministers do not need advisers and specialist support. I take a contrary view. I argue that it is good and there is an unanswerable case, for example, for the Minister for Finance to have an adviser on the Stock Exchange or on financial services. I would argue also that there is a case for programme managers but there is no case whatsoever for suggesting that the people who should fulfil these particular posts must be drawn from the political parties in office.

With regard to programme managers, the Taoiseach told us that he and his party have changed their view on this issue on the basis of one article published in a Sunday newspaper by a non-civil servant programme manager, who was employed by a Fianna Fáil Minister — the only non-civil servant programme manager to be employed by a Fianna Fáil Minister in the last Administration. This is the most disingenuous argument that could have been put forward to support any political twist or turn in the entire history of the State. The argument put forward in that article, which seems to have given rise to the Taoiseach's Pauline conversion, is the suggestion that the party political programme managers employed by the Labour Party Ministers in the last Administration ran rings around the Civil Service programme managers engaged by Fianna Fáil.

Anybody who has any experience of the Irish Civil Service knows that there are people of immense capacity in the Civil Service. I know many of the programme managers on all sides and I do not believe that any one side, either the Labour Party members or the Fianna Fáil programme managers, would have claimed to have run rings around the other side. I dispute the Cahill analysis in this regard; that line of argument is offensive to the Irish public service. If the argument had any truth, it makes the case for full-time Civil Service programme managers. Programme managers are employed to co-ordinate public policies; they are not and should not be put in place to play politics. They should not, at the public's expense, be operating as a form of Svengali, pulling ministerial strings and operating as mischief makers behind the scenes without any public accountability.

It is an offence to the intelligence of Members of this House to try to present this shabby rip off as in some way in the public interest. We are seeing the taxpayers' pockets rifled to bolster the Fine Gael Party by putting friends, supporters and people that the party is considering developing for the future on to the public payroll. It is bad enough that taxpayers must be invited to make a contribution to the funding of the political parties. It now seems that taxpayers are being forced to pay for the grooming of Fine Gael Party hopefuls. This is extraordinary, odious, obnoxious and absolutely unacceptable. The Bill and these proposals are a sham. I say this not in any way to attack the two people put forward for office because they have talents and they deserve promotion. They can argue their own case in this regard. Combined with the mass appointments of advisers, programme managers and other specialist support, it represents the most serious attack on the body politic, the most serious extension of cynicism, pork barrel and Tammany Hall politics, ever witnessed since the foundation of the State. I hope that Members on the Independent benches in particular will review the situation before they vote on this matter.

Mr. Burke

I welcome the Minister to the House and congratulate him on his appointment. I wish him well and a long term in office.

I have listened with great interest to Opposition speakers and I take issue with Senator Roche in relation to the responsibilities of Deputy Carey. The day to day running of the affairs of the Gaeltacht will be carried out by Deputy Carey in the same way as Deputy Pat the Cope Gallagher carried out those functions when he was in office. Ultimate responsibility lies with the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht as was the case when the former Taoiseach, a good friend of Senator Roche, Mr. Haughey, held the office of Minister for the Gaeltacht as well as being Taoiseach.

Senator O'Kennedy, interestingly, put figures on the cost of Ministers of State; he said that it would cost £1 million per Minister of State per year. Nobody would know better than Senator O'Kennedy as he has spent many years at the highest level in Government. How can Senator O'Kennedy and his colleagues condone the fact that a senior Minister has spent two years travelling the country organising Fianna Fáil? That would have to have been at a hefty cost to the taxpayers.

In addition, there were two Fianna Fáil Ministers of State who stood in the last European elections. We all know how long elections take; a Dáil election can take three weeks to a month, but a European campaign can take up to six months. Senator O'Kennedy tells us that the cost of a Minister of State is £1 million, but two Fianna Fáil Ministers of State were running around the country to gain election to the European Parliament and it took them five months to resign their portfolios when they were elected to Europe. I would like Senator O'Kennedy to note this.

In considering the creation of additional posts at junior ministerial level the principal issue that must be addressed is the importance of the tasks and responsibilities to be taken on by the individuals appointed. The same set of criteria must be applied in respect of those posts as would be applied to any position in Government or any organisation. Is the job necessary? Are there important issues to address? What are the benefits that might accrue? What, if anything, can be achieved? It is the contention of the Government that the issue of quality and efficiency of services delivered by the State to individuals is of vital importance. The depopulation and economic decline in the west is also a serious issue demanding a focused, co-ordinated and urgent response from the Government.

Perhaps the Opposition feels differently. Perhaps it is content to sit back and watch the social fabric of our rural areas crumble. Perhaps it feels that the people of the west should be abandoned to sort out their own problems. It is clear that the two appointments in question have been created with a clearly defined brief: to address specific issues and formulate co-ordinated action plans to produce results and bring about real change.

The parties in Government are committed to a more responsive, transparent and accountable State sector. In particular it is essential that the most up to date and sophisticated methods and technology are brought to bear on the delivery of public services. Quality and efficiency must be the watchwords for the public service. The Government is determined to give consumers of public service value for money. This will require technical and cultural change. To ensure that such change occurs an agenda for action must be put in place which is result based and which makes a real difference to the quality of service to the public. This can only happen if the change programme is focused, co-ordinated and led from the top.

The proposal to appoint Deputy Doyle as Minister of State with special responsibility for consumers of public services demonstrates the Government's commitment to radical and continuous improvement in public services. Deputy Doyle's appointment to the Department of the Taoiseach demonstrates the highest level of political commitment to public service change. She will play a key role in managing the change programme and taking responsibility for the successful outcome of the process. It is obvious that unless the responsibility and accountability of the success of this project lies clearly with one Minister, the chances of success are greatly reduced. The public deserves more than lip service to improvements in the public service and this Government, unlike the Opposition, will ensure that such improvements occur.

I draw the attention of the House to statistics in the Ombudsman's report for 1993 in relation to local authorities and the public service, and I will read an article from the Fine Gael publication Councillors News, August/September 1994 issue, which states:

The Ombudsman recently published his report for the year 1993. In total his office received 3,046 complaints...a figure very similar to that for 1992, 1991 and 1990.

A breakdown of the number of complaints within his jurisdiction in 1993 indicates that more than half were against Civil Service Departments and Offices. Almost one in five complaints received was against local authorities, which represents the highest level of complaints received in this area since the local authorities came within the Ombudsman's remit in April 1985. In 1986, the first full year in which local authorities were within his remit, these complaints represented 10 per cent of the total number of complaints received. In 1993 the total was almost 20 per cent of the number received [almost double].

The greatest sources of complaint to the Ombudsman about local authorities concerned housing allocations and transfers. This was followed by complaints about roads and traffic, service charges, housing repairs, planning enforcement, housing loans and grants and planning administration.

I also wish to quote from another article in the same publication entitled "The Perfect Council?". In 1984 the company, Courtaulds, which was in Braintree in England, announced that it was closing its factory.

It was a huge blow as the town's biggest employer put 5,000 people out of work. The crisis proved an inspiration, however, for a management revolution at the local council which has since become a model for other local authorities in the UK.

The then newly appointed chief executive at Braintree District Council, Charles Daybell, decided that to attract investment the authority would have to concentrate on customer service.

Since the mid-1980s Braintree has developed a corporate culture drawn from the best practice in the private sector which appears to permeate every part of its organisation. On the surface Braintree [with a population of 120,000 people] appears to have a council not much different from others with modern, brick-built administrative offices at the edge of a tidy Essex town. It is the behaviour of the staff — and the way they deal with people which has seen a stream of public sector managers beat a path to Braintree's door [to find out how they are running their affairs].

That is why the Government has decided to appoint Deputy Doyle to ensure that the people get the best services possible. She is a capable person; it is an ideal portfolio for her and she will do an excellent job in this area.

Similarly, the Government is not prepared to tolerate any longer the problems faced by communities in the west of Ireland. The Government shares the concern of bishops in the west that the current situation is one of crisis that requires urgent action. The Government must involve itself in partnership with the people to solve these problems. It is essential that the activities of the various Government agencies are coordinated in a manner that ensures that the issues involved are prioritised on the Government agenda and that they are addressed effectively. The proposal to appoint Deputy Carey as Minister of State with responsibility for western development and rural renewal will ensure that these goals are met.

Deputy Carey will be responsible for the activities of the Western Development Partnership Board and for co-ordinating the implementation of the action plan which has been prepared by the board. Deputy Carey's appointment also clearly demonstrates the Government's desire and commitment to ensure that all areas benefit from the opportunities for growth and employment which are at the heart of the Government's programme. This Government, unlike the Opposition, will seek to give real meaning to the concepts of partnership and community.

In conclusion, it is encouraging to see that the western bishops have welcomed the appointment of the Minister of State for Western Development. Indeed, it was described by the Archbishop of Tuam as the best news for the west so far this year. It is a pity that the Opposition would rather score cheap political points than address the gravity of the problems of the west. Deputy Carey's appointment, along with that of Deputy Doyle, are characteristics of the Government's intentions to let our actions do the talking. No western Senator here today can vote against this Bill.

Dr. Henry

I wish to share my time with Senator O'Toole.

Acting Chairman

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Dr. Henry

I welcome the Minister to the House; I think it is the first time he has been here.

I very much support what Senator Lee said this morning. The west is certainly deserving of a Minister. Again, the fact that these Ministers were not put in place at the same time as the others is unfortunate, but even if at this late stage it has been decided to give priority to the geographical concept of a Minister having overall power to take initiatives in that area, it is a good idea. In fact, the situation could be that areas of priority were allotted to these Ministers and perhaps they might not be strictly bound in future Governments to these same areas if future Governments decide that those sort of measures are needed.

The concept of having a Minister in overall charge of the public service is also worthwhile. We talked earlier about the concept of a whole Department for the public service. The major problem at that time was, as some other Senators have said, that this Department became very isolated. Rather than being an integral part of the various parts of the public service with which they were trying to deal, they were looked upon with grave suspicion by those members of the public service. There has certainly been a great deal of evidence, as other Senators have brought out, of a need for reform and improvement within the public service. I am not sure how far Minister Doyle's brief will extend, but I presume we will see this as her job evolves with time.

We have recently seen the need for reform within the various Government Departments. The last Government wisely put forward strategic management initiatives, which I gather are already in place in some Government Departments. However, there are some Departments where it is perfectly obvious that a great deal of reorganisation is needed. For example, there was the recent —"exposure" is the wrong word to use — revelations of how the Office of the Attorney General worked. If many other offices within the Government or the State are run without the aid of modern technology, similar results may occur.

As a doctor, I am fully aware of the problems regarding confidentiality. We were most anxious about this aspect when it came into the health service, but it had to be tackled. The advantages one can have from modern technology should not be dismissed by pleading the grounds that confidentiality would be impossible to keep. It is most important that all Departments ensure that the greatest advances are made within their Departments so that the Departments, which are there to serve the public as well as Members of the Oireachtas and the Government, are able to give information as quickly, as easily and as factually as possible. I was interested to find that this was one area where many of my constituents told me that they found it impossible to believe that alterations had not been made to an archaic system. I listened to some of the members of that Department who spoke to the Select Committee on Legislation and Security and I began to wonder if they were run down by a bus. How on earth could one investigate the filing system in that Department? It is a great relief to know that a strategic management initiative will now take place there.

When the controversy on this Bill was beginning I said that I would support the Government. In the last session — and it was no fault of those who were running the Government side of the House — we lost a great deal of time when there was a lot of important legislation which could be brought forward and I did not want to see any further time being wasted.

The Government has put forward a huge plan for renewal; there is an enormous amount of legislation there. I very much hope — the Leader of the House, Senator Manning, has indicated that he will certainly try to ensure this — that more legislation is introduced in this House because I think it is worthwhile. The Bills that came to this House, such as the various Heritage Bills and Minister Taylor's, were in no way diminished; in fact, I think they were improved upon. I know that Senator Manning has said in the past that he feels the Independent University Senators — this was a long time ago — could exercise a little democratic humility sometimes. I do feel that Bills such as that could be brought into the House and that we could make progress on them. I also very much welcome the extension of the committee system because it certainly speeds up legislation and allows for a less confrontational and an in-depth study of the legislation.

I pointed out Bills yesterday, one of which, regarding the transfer of sentenced persons, I was glad to hear the Leader say this morning would be taken as a matter of urgency. The issue of prisoners in the peace process is very urgent. This is the one area where we can make a concrete statement on the matter and show that we at least are trying to settle the situation so that those sentenced in other countries — in general they will be serving sentences in Great Britain — can be returned here. It would be a positive step to make and I am glad to see that the Leader said we will be looking at this urgently.

I also referred — I hope it was not with the same urgency — to the ratification of the Convention on the 1977 Protocols to the Geneva Convention. We constantly talk about what we must do about Chechnya and Bosnia and make statements on Somalia and so forth, but we are the only country, apart from Turkey and the United Kingdom — it is working on it — in the West who have not ratified this Convention. I know we are not going to bomb nuclear power stations, which is part of the convention — the Government jet is in use a lot of the time — but it is important to remember that a lot of these conventions extend the Geneva Convention to cover civilians in time of war. For example, we now see civilians being used as tools as regards deprivation of food, transport of minorities and so forth. All of these are urgent issues where we could make a better statement if we had ratified the Conventions.

Before I conclude, I must comment about this morning. I feel that Senator Wright ran the House excellently when he was Leader. In fact, I wonder if he is not a reader of Nancy Mitford. I remember in previous times when women's rights were not as strong, Nancy Mitford wrote that "One should always be polite to single girls because you never knew who they might marry." I wonder if the fact that Senator Wright was always so kind and accommodating to us when we were powerless might not have been an important factor in how we would vote with him in future. However, the current Leader of the House was always very charming when he was on this side of the House and we will remember that as well.

I support the Bill. I hope that both Deputies will do a great deal of work in these important areas. I also hope the Leader will manage to bring all the proposed legislation in his area to this House and that we can get a great deal of useful work done during this session.

Mr. O'Toole

I thank Senator Henry for sharing her time with me.

At the time of a change of Government in the mid-term of a Dáil, which was anticipated by the Constitution but is unprecedented in the history of the State, it was necessary to make a quart fit into a pint pot on a number of occasions and Governments have had to approach this with an air of flexibility and creativity which was not required of them in other times. As Members of the Independents group we are each independent of all others, including each other. We must, therefore, take the approach of considering each Bill——

Mr. Dardis

Where has yesterday's stability gone?

Mr. O'Toole

We are each aware of our role in making the House effective in doing its work. Each of us would take it that it is completely inappropriate to sell our votes to the Government on the basis of the highest bidder taking all. That is not the way we would approach the job we have to do in this House in a responsible way. We have brought to the Leader, as I did to the previous Leader and the Leader before that, certain problems and difficulties we have in doing our business in the area of backup and support. I have got a very open and reasonable response from the Leader on these matters. That goes without saying and I would have expected no differently.

In terms of our commitment to the House, each of us is determined to make our contribution to committee work and the reform of the House. We will certainly seek our place on all the committees of the House and Oireachtas Joint Committees. Similarly, we would certainly want to have a very clear and influential role in reform of the House. The record shows clearly that Senator Manning, as Leader and as leader of the Opposition in previous times, has been absolutely consistent for as long as I have been in the House in seeking reform to gain greater efficiency in the working of the House. I have always found him to be very open to this. He has personally given me a commitment that this attitude of openness to reform will continue and he will continue to take on board my views and those of other Members of the Independent Group. This is now a very critical time in the history of the Seanad. As Independent Members we will want to play our part in that. I welcome the commitment of the Leader to accept our point of view and our representation in all those areas of movement.

This to me is important and I want to relate it to the business of the day. The Government finds itself in office in extraordinary times. It has needed to change the rules, respond to situations as it went along and has found the need to pick a new team to do its job. I believe that some hamfisted decisions have been taken by the Government in the short time it has been in office in trying to get itself out of problems. The first decision of this Government not to increase ministerial salaries was about the most regressive decision that has been made in my time. As a trade union general secretary I find it total anathema that a Government does not accept the proposals of an independent arbitration body like Gleeson. The increases should have been implemented. The previous Government was right to implement them and they should have been retained. I feel very strongly about this. I have no aspirations to be a Minister. I speak without any vested interests whatsoever. As I am not a member of a party, I have neither ambition nor outlet in that direction. If we are in the business — it is part of what I am talking about — of attracting good people into political life who are successful in their own walks of life, be it in business or anywhere else, we have to pay them the rate for the job. It does not do anybody any good to back down in the face of a tabloid type hysterical and sensational response in the way the Government did.

The Leader yesterday briefly mentioned votes for emigrants. I am on record as being the first Member of either House to go to the trouble of going abroad to speak on this issue in 1987. At that stage I could not get any political party to support me. Deputy Jim Mitchell of Fine Gael supported me but he was the only person I could find. I have spoken in New York and London and have consistently fought this case. I am glad to see movement on this issue developing to some extent.

I will certainly bring forward proposals to extend and take a far deeper look at the way people are elected to this House. At the moment I believe this is undemocratic and unrepresentative. Every group in Ireland should be represented in this House. The panel system should be opened up. The inside panel should be retained by the franchise of local authority members but in other cases the outside panel should be opened up to the people of that vocation. In other words, farmers would vote on the agricultural panel, teachers and parents would have votes on the educational panel, trade unionists would vote on the labour panel, the same would apply to industry and so on. This would make the House far more representational and it needs to be done.

I say to the Leader that the question of consolidating legislation has not been dealt with in a strategic way by this House. We amend legislation but there needs to be an approach to consolidation of legislation and the putting forward of proposals on taking old pieces of legislation together and amending large rafts of legislation into consolidated legislation. This need to be done and we should look at this in a serious way.

The role of this House in responding topically to issues has been borne out in the last two years by the very fine debates which took place here on the Northern situation and this can be extended. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs should report to this House regularly to allow a full discussion on foreign policy matters on a monthly basis or so where people can raise those issues. That would go some distance to dealing with another matter to which the Leader has referred. In 1987-89 I sat on a committee which looked at reform of the House and we both agreed on a proposal to introduce within the House the idea of a topical hour, similar to what is done in a number of European parliaments including, I think, the Bundestag, where in the course of the week an hour is set aside for Members to raise issues of a topical nature which can be responded to within the confines of the House, either by a Minister sitting in a general factotum way or by the Leader. Perhaps we should have a Minister for the Seanad.

With regard to the proposals on the two new Ministers of State, the general view is that this is the Government extricating itself from a difficulty. It does not need a very precise mind to work that out. It is as clear as day that the Government got itself into a particular mess and part of the solution was the creation of extra Ministers. The Government got one thing wrong and it is trying to solve it by this approach.

A Ministry for the west is being created. Over the past few days I had a long discussion with the Deputy proposed for that position. In my role as general secretary of the INTO I have great concern about the decline of population in the west and have particular concern about what happens in a local community when a school is closed. A young couple will not set up house in that area because if there is no school to send their kids they do not want to live there and the process of running down that village immediately continues. Deputy Carey has given me a straight commitment that he will share my concern about the protection of such schools and the need to ensure that small schools servicing the west, far away and remote from urban areas, should have access to back up in terms of remediation and other support services, to which they would be entitled. Some years ago Deputy Carey carried out an in-depth study of the level of remediation in schools in Clare which I had pleasure of launching for him.

I have also spoken at some length with the proposed new Minister of State with responsibility for areas of the public service. I pointed out to her, in my role as a member of the public services committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, that there were many aspects of the role of the public servant. Governments have the responsibility to bring back to public servants a sense of pride in providing a public service and in giving value to the taxpayer. Much work needs to be done in that area and this can be done effectively and positively.

I do not have any particularly strong views about the fact that there are two extra junior Ministers. As a trade unionist I am always happy to see promotion roles and posts being made available to people in any walk of life and I do not exclude Deputies. I have consistently taken the view of supporting proposals which have enhanced the career structure, salaries, expenses and promotion prospects of Members of either House of the Oireachtas from whatever party. I would see it as my role to exploit this as far as possible. I have listened with great interest to the point of view being offered by the Opposition. With all the letters I have received from ambitious Fianna Fáil TDs urging me to ensure that I should do nothing to reduce their promotion prospects by reducing 17 junior Ministers to 15, I am almost in a mearbhall aigne, as they say in Irish, about trying to deal with the different points of view. Certainly, there are many people in Fianna Fáil who share that view. I did not hear anybody from these benches say today that in Government Fianna Fáil will reduce that figure of 17 to 15. I would be far more taken by the emotional logic which has been pushed at us if I heard a firm commitment that that 17 would be reduced to 15, but I do not see it happening. It does not do the business of politics any good to approach it that way.

One point about junior Ministers, however, bothers me substantially. That was a decision taken by a Fine Gael-Labour Government in the early 1980s when there was a huge outcry in the tabloid press about the cost of cars for Ministers. The Government decided then that junior Ministers would not have cars and drivers, but would get expenses instead. That, to me, is a disastrous decision. It is bad for the security of the State, the safety of Ministers and the demand being put on these people if they are not properly trained. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with their drivers but I firmly believe that using Garda drivers, as a method of defence, would have been cheaper, better and more appropriate. I do not like the fire brigade response that has taken place over the years.

In allowing this new Government to pick its own team and to get on with the job I am, in a sense, making no statement beyond that. It is my intention to support this legislation and to take all the criticism that will go with that decision. I do not believe in giving people a job to do and then hog-tying them. I have said quite clearly that I have reservations about the set of proposals but I am prepared to give this Government a chance to do its business. I will be its most ardent critic, as I always have been. There will be nothing to read from my support for this legislation other than that I support the Government in getting its act together and moving forward. I have a certain admiration for a Taoiseach who can stand up in the Dáil and say, "Yes, I did say that six months ago. I got it wrong and I am doing it differently now." That gives me a sense of confidence because I believe that people who do not make mistakes do not do anything. I hope that another mistake is not being made here today.

I am supporting the legislation in order to give the Government a chance and because I feel that the business of this House should involve being critical — sifting, filtering and examining Government proposals. If the Government needs two further junior Ministers in order to do its job properly then I am prepared to take them at face value and accept their good offices. I am also doing it on the basis of the clear indications given to me by the Leader of the House about his openness to change, his acceptance of our role as Independent Members of the House who would like to have an input into committees and the decision making process. On the basis that I am looking at an open Government which wants to change and make this House more relevant, which is prepared to grasp the nettle of change and is prepared to see the Independent Senators having a real role in the work of the House, I am prepared to bite the bullet on this issue. With some reluctance I will support this legislation.

Mr. Howard

I am glad of the opportunity of supporting the legislation before us as well as giving the reasons for that support. I regret the fact that this issue was seized upon by the new Opposition as a chance to bare their teeth. It is not that I am sentimental or emotional about the issue because I have gone beyond that stage, but I know of no political party that has milked the misfortune of the west and its depopulation more than Fianna Fáil has over the years.

A positive political decision is being taken for the first time to put a Minister in charge of co-ordinating the services and development of the west of Ireland. I am disappointed that that was the football selected by the new Opposition to play their game with. Strangely enough, I can understand the reservations of the other Opposition party, because at least they are being consistent in their attitude to expansion of Government and the public service. As this is an issue about which I feel quite strongly, I do not propose to be controversial to any further degree on it.

Knowing the two individuals who will become Ministers as a result of the passage of this legislation, I am satisfied about their competence and commitment to do a first class job when the new portfolios are assigned to them. Deputy Avril Doyle was a distinguished and able Member of this House and served as Deputy Leader of the Fine Gael group. Previously, she attended a number of Seanad debates during her period as a Minister of State. No one with experience of dealing with Deputy Doyle can doubt her capacity and ability to deliver on the position that is being proposed for her.

The second position is proposed for my own county and constituency colleague, Deputy Donal Carey. I will be dealing with his qualities later on, but I fully endorse the proposal to have a Minister with sole responsibility for the development of the West of Ireland and rural resources. I do that perhaps as much because of my background as anything else. I wish to look back on my own experience because, in a way, it mirrors many of the problems associated with the area.

With the exception of Senator Fitzgerald on the other side of the House, nobody was born or lived closer to the Atlantic than I. For 25 years I lived in that area. I left it and moved inland 26 miles to the capital town in my county. I want to go back and give a brief picture of the area in which I grew up. Seventeen of us were classmates in the local national school during the 1940s; today there is one left in that parish and two of us left in the county. The other 15 are scattered from San Francisco to Sydney. Three of them, God be good to them, have now gone further afield.

Two years ago, for a purpose that is to a degree related to that in which we are engaged this evening, I did a survey in that area. I counted, in the catchment area of the local school, the number of houses people lived in when I grew up there. The total was 84. Two years ago only 41 of these houses were occupied and I am sure the figure is lower today. The most frightening figure of all is that in only seven of these houses is there a growing generation. Over a period of a generation or a generation and a half, the viability of that area had gone from 84 households to what will be but seven in a few years time.

I have often examined the reasons which prompted me to leave. I can honestly say they were not solely economic as I was involved in a successful farming enterprise. It was something else. I was a young person and all my colleagues and companions were gone from the area. I was surrounded by a generation of older people who were steadily getting older. There was a loss of hope in the area. Perhaps subconsciously the factor that weighed most was that authority and Government had abandoned the area and hope for it.

That is a fairly true picture of the problems that created the situation we have throughout the West. Once hope and the vitality young people can provide in an area are gone, there is very little left. My own reasons for leaving were not economic. I accept that many people abandon and leave areas in the West for economic reasons.

The most sorrowful sight in the West is an abandoned bungalow. Bungalows are a relatively new feature on the landscape and their presence means that they have been built within the last 20 to 30 years. This indicates that there were people with hope — misguided or otherwise — who tried to create a future there but because the infrastructure and the back up did not exist, they had to abandon the dream and the home they had created. That is really what we are looking at there.

The question we now have to address is, is there still time to make an impact and a difference there? I believe there is. Over the past few years I have had occasion to visit Gweedor in County Donegal. The quality of the land there could not be poorer but, strangely, there is a vitality there. The industries and the jobs are there. It has the greatest concentration of people in a rural area in the European Community. It is interesting that the population is growing and improving. Something has been achieved there that is not in conformity with the general landscape along the western seaboard.

Two former Members of this House have also in their own way and by their own efforts pointed out what is possible. I refer to the two Connemara Senators we had in this House at one stage. Deputy Ó Cuív and Pól Ó Foighil. In their own way they have been associated with areas in Connemara and have shown that one does not have to adhere entirely to the policy of defeat.

There is another interesting development taking place, that is, rural resettlement. A certain amount is taking place in the Loop Head peninsula in County Clare. My colleague, Senator Taylor-Quinn, would be more familiar with it than I. I do not have to go into any depth in explaining the concept and thought behind it. Promoted by a far seeing man called Jim Connolly, the idea is to relocate young families and young parents from the overcrowded cities, particularly those who are unemployed, in the empty houses in the Loop Head area and other areas of the West.

I gather that there is a queue of people waiting to go there. Some 38 families have gone and 36 remained, two having returned. That is a very interesting balance. We will never be able to judge the success of that scheme until the children of that migration reach their twenties. However, it is a positive move and should be encouraged.

On the issue of encouragement, I want to draw the Minister's attention to a specific point. Does he know how negative certain arms of the State can become? Some of these people — some of whom never worked — when they came west, whether it was the bracing air I do not know, began to apply their energies to crafts and other activities to boost their position. Regrettably it did not take inspectors from Social Welfare and Revenue long to investigate their activities. I draw this to this Minister's attention, but it will come within the remit of Deputy Carey when he becomes a Minister.

I mentioned a few things for the purpose of showing that not everything is bleak and that things are happening. It is to co-ordinate these things that I welcome the proposal to appoint a Minister for western development. Having mentioned the attitude of certain officials to some of these enterprising people, I also put on record another event that happened almost 30 years ago.

Senator Taylor-Quinn will recall an area known as Cremlin and Deereen, which was some miles from where I grew up, but which was a noted market gardening area. It was virtually frost free. It was cultivated and it provided the fruits of market gardening. There was also approximately 12 or 14 curraghs fishing from the little harbour there. In the 1960s a measure was introduced to supplement farm incomes, which was known as small farmers' dole. I suppose there was the lure of free money, but our friends from the Department of Social Welfare arrived on the scene and began to calculate the value of the off farm income or the notional income which was generated from these activities. The result was that after approximately three years these gardens were growing grass. The expertise and enterprise which could have been preserved and developed was killed because of a short-sighted attitude. The person who will be the Minister of State must be aware of the damage which people with a negative attitude to the problems of the west can cause.

There is another factor which is influential in helping to resolve the situation there. The western bishops have been active over the past few years and they have shown through their document a way forward on this issue. This is a welcome development. It is a positive political commitment to an area which badly needs it and all sides of the House should welcome it as such. I have given a picture of my own area, which is typical of so many other areas in the west, and what has happened and can happen. I hope we are not too late, but then I look at the positive developments. If the goodwill and success of these individual efforts can be brought together and if the leadership which I believe exists in the area can be properly harnessed, then we can achieve what we have set out to achieve.

As regards the personality and capacity of the man who is identified as taking over these responsibilities, Deputy Carey, he has the background which qualifies him for this task. He has the commitment, having effectively served a western constituency for the past number of years, both in the Oireachtas and in local politics; and he has the ability. In addition to his understanding of the economic difficulties which he must deal with and overcome, he is also a man strongly committed to the particular culture which belongs to and is unique to that area. I am totally satisfied that the proposal is an excellent one and it has been badly needed for the past 30 or 40 years. It might be late, but nevertheless we should try it. I am also satisfied that the man designated to lead that revival has the capacity, commitment and ability to do it.

Mr. Dardis

I congratulate the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Hogan, on his appointment. He is showing an admirable sense of duty by staying here all day rather than rotating. As regards the criticisms we will make about this Bill, he stands exempt from such criticism because his duties are carefully defined. They are within one Department and, in addition to that, he is a member of a Cabinet subcommittee on the budget. I hope he does not find himself in a similar situation to that of Deputy Rabbitte, perching like the parrot on Long John Silver's shoulder, who is observing but not participating. I am sure that will not happen in his case. His appointment is an example of how, I believe, Ministers of State should be appointed. They should have a specific and narrow brief, be responsible to one Department and they should not be given a plethora of responsibilities across many Departments, which is what we are being asked to accept here today. I and my party do not accept this and we will be opposing it when it is put to a vote.

A lot of time was spent today talking about reform. The Leader of the House mentioned it in detail this morning. There is no argument about reform. We are all agreed about the necessity to reform this House. Debates have taken place in the past which have pointed out how that reform should take place, but we are not debating that here today. We are debating legislation which proposes to increase the number of junior Ministers from 15 to 17. Questions arise as to whether that is appropriate, if it will lead to more efficient Government or if it is in the interests of the country. I believe it is not because we are adding layer upon layer. We have a Cabinet of 15 Members, which by European standards is about average or a little less than average. There is no European model for the other appointments we are making which would serve to help us. Not only have we junior Ministers with responsibilities across several Departments, but we also have programme managers and advisers. Is the taxpayer getting value for money from this activity? I suggest he is not.

This is not reform; it does not go anywhere near reform. This is an example of political expediency. Legislation is being introduced to the House to endorse what was regarded as politically expedient and which could not be done other than by the assent of the Oireachtas. That assent is now being sought. This is another example of jobs for the boys and girls. That might even be tolerable, not acceptable, were it not for the position which the main Government party took on these matters while in Opposition. Let us have consistency in public life. Is it any wonder that there is cynicism about and contempt for politics and politicians when they hear us saying one thing vehemently, forcefully and vigorously while in Opposition, and then immediately upon entering Government see something else being done? Is it any wonder that the confidence of the public in these Houses is eroded?

This is a response to accommodate individual Deputies. I cast no aspersions on the integrity or the merit of those Deputies. They are good people and I am sure they are worthy of promotion, but not in this way. We are seeing a way of putting cement into the crumbling edifice of a multi-party coalition Government. It is an attempt to keep everybody satisfied and to keep everyone on side. When something did not work, as happened in Deputy Carey's case when he was not made Leas-Cheann Comhairle, we had to find another way to accommodate him.

I listened carefully to Senator Howard and I will also tour the West during my contribution. He made an eloquent statement about the conditions of the people in the west. That statement has been re-echoed time and time again throughout the West and throughout the country. In that knowledge, why was a Minister for western development not appointed from the beginning? There is nothing in the Government press release of 20 December last to indicate such a Minister would be appointed. It is indicated that Deputy Doyle would be appointed but there is nothing about a Minister for western development. This obviously was added on as an afterthought. Someone had the bright idea that a Minister for the west had been sought for some time, so here was a way to make this acceptable. This was probably the only device by which this would gain acceptance in some quarters, although I do not find it acceptable.

Something else should be said in respect of western development. I attended those meetings in Galway when the then Bishop of Galway, Bishop Casey — who is still a bishop, although no longer in that post — eloquently pleaded for this type of appointment. I attended the press conferences held by the western bishops in Sligo and elsewhere. It should be made clear that this initiative came from a small group of farmers in Galway and north Clare who went not to their politicians but to their bishop, an indication again of the total lack of confidence of the people of that area in their elected representatives. It is galling to hear people speak so vehemently of the need for this appointment who never attended or went near any of those meetings held throughout the west of Ireland. At least those who went have some entitlement to make the case but those who did not turn up have little ground to stand on.

We are asked to assent to these two appointments. Senator Manning spoke this morning about the complexity of modern society — he is right about that — and the need to respond to that increased complexity. What is not right is to respond in this way by providing another layer of complexity in the appointments being made.

Questions of inter-departmental liaison and competitive rivalries arise. We frequently see that Government does not function properly in areas where more than one Government Department is involved. The example of education in the agricultural sphere was cited earlier. This is the responsibility of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry but perhaps more properly belongs to the Department of Education. Those inter-departmental rivalries and difficulties did exist but this is not the way to overcome them.

I have a vision of people commuting between three Government Departments, with three offices, perhaps with three chauffeurs. It defies description that we have this circuit moving between several Government Departments without interconnected areas of responsibility. There might be some sense if that was the case. To take the earlier example, it might be appropriate to make agricultural education the responsibility of a junior Minister in the Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry and also make him a Minister of State in the Department of Education. In these cases, however, the connection is frequently not clear. The appointment of the Minister of State, Deputy Hogan, is an example of how this should be done. It is simple and clearly defined. He is the Minister responsible for the Office of Public Works and has budgetary responsibility. That is within one Government Department and the lines of responsibility are clear.

Another matter we are confronted with is the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs. I noted the Minister's speech said Seanad membership on that committee would be increased from five to ten. Why?

Mr. Manning

On a point of information, I will tell the Senator exactly why. I asked that it be increased. In the initial allocation there were only five Senators, which I thought was shamefully inadequate. I thought we should have representation proportionate to our size, so we should have ten seats.

Mr. Dardis

I still do not think it is necessary to have an additional five people on that committee. What is necessary is to have extra committees of both Houses of the Oireachtas. Before the Leader intervenes again, I am aware there is a provision to create extra committees. That is the way to move — to extend the number of committees rather than enlarge those that already exist.

We now have 32 ministerial office holders. We will soon have more chairpersons and convenors of committees and will rapidly reach the point where it will be, in the phrase of Mr. Gay Byrne, "one for everybody in the audience". My view accords with that expressed by Senator O'Kennedy earlier. The merit of the ordinary backbench TD or Senator should be properly rewarded in itself. It should not be necessary to find "Mercs and perks" to reward people. They should be adequately rewarded for the jobs they do and they should do them well, because that is how they will serve their constituents.

I will be careful and explicit in my remarks about Deputy Carey's appointment. I make no reflection on the personality of either Deputy Carey or Deputy Doyle; they are both excellent Deputies, deserving of promotion. Let us look at how this nomination took place. Was there a Minister for the west of Ireland when this Government was formed? No. Where was the commitment to western development? There was nothing in the programme for Government to suggest such commitment. When the Cabinet and Ministers of State were announced on 20 December, one would have expected to see evidence of such commitment but it was not there.

Then Deputy Carey failed to become Leas-Cheann Comhairle. Suddenly someone remembered western development, A Crusade for Survival, etc. This was a convenient slot to find. What happened in the west of Ireland was people doing things for themselves. There is huge energy and creativity in the west, just as there is in all the people of Ireland. That must be released and the people are quite capable of doing it themselves if they are given the opportunity to do so.

The question then arises, which is relevant to the responsibility of the Minister of State, Deputy Deenihan, as to why the LEADER programme is not in place. That has helped the west of Ireland, providing practical aid to people. LEADER II was due to come into operation when LEADER I finished at the end of 1994. We are still waiting for it and do not know what the Government's financial commitment to it will be.

On the basis of everything Senator Howard said, I do not know why the Minister expects the population of the west will have stabilised by the end of the decade. What evidence is there for that other than that it has sunk so low it cannot sink any lower? On what is that expectation based? Since Senator Howard made such an eloquent case for the west of Ireland, why was this appointment not made in the first place?

Deputy Doyle's appointment is a much more serious matter. The ability of the Deputy is not in dispute and she may be disappointed not to be in Cabinet. What we have here is what Deputy McDowell described in the Dáil as a "lean-to ministry".

Mr. Lydon

There is no such a thing as a point of information in Standing Orders.

Mr. Dardis

The Senator will have her turn to speak when she can make her point of information.

An Cathaoirleach

The Senator can refer to that in her speech. Senator Dardis to continue.

Mr. Dardis

Mr. Hogan

The juvenile justice Bill.

Mr. Dardis

I do not understand why it is necessary to have people wandering about between three Departments. They become jacks of all trades and masters of none and it does not make for good Government. That is my objection to the Bill.

Then we have the curious case of Deputy Rabbitte who is in limbo. He attends Cabinet meetings, has a full State car but half salary. He is a new phenomenon within the political firmament. He attends Cabinet meetings and I assume he is bound by Cabinet confidentiality. He sits like an owl on the fence and observes and participates in what is going on but he has no vote. We all know that this was a politically expedient solution which was decided on the floor of the House just before the vote which confirmed Deputy Bruton's appointment as Taoiseach. It would have been preferable for Democratic Left to have had two full Cabinet Ministers. That, however, was not possible and this was the expedient solution — a solution that I would not regard as satisfactory. As was stated yesterday, he sits in the ministerial high chair at the Cabinet table.

Sir——

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator Taylor-Quinn without interruption, please.

Mr. Dardis

If I leave, Sir, we would not be allowed speak on that matter.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator Taynor-Quinn without interruption.

Mrs. Taylor-Quinn

Another matter which Senator Dardis should reflect on is the issue of State pensions and the question of office holders and Members of the Oireachtas drawing State pensions while still serving in the Oireachtas. Perhaps the Minister of State in the Department of Finance, in his concluding remarks to the House today, will be in a position to advise if current Progressive Democrats Deputies are drawing State pensions while being Members of the Lower House. It is important information. If we want consistency, transparency and lack of hypocrisy let us have it straight, right across the board. I did not intend making these remarks initially, but the contribution by Senator Dardis has forced me into making them and I look forward to hearing from the Senator on both of these issues at some stage in the future.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I take it that the Senator will now speak to the Bill.

Mrs. Taylor-Quinn

Senator Dardis made much reference to issues which did not relate to the Bill and I was therefore tempted to respond. I welcome the Bill before the House. In considering the Bill we should consider the history of the formation of the Government. I will not bore anybody by going into the details which led to the change in Government, but suffice it to say that that the Government has taken office and created history, in so far as it is the first time since the foundation of the State that a Government has taken office without a general election. Equally, it is the first time since Governments were formed in this land that three parties are in Government.

It has been stated, both in this House and the other House, that it is vital to have a secure and stable Government, and I believe this Bill will lead to the security and stability of the Government. Having been elected, a Government should be given the opportunity to decide what it thinks is in the best interests of providing stable Government, and the Government has decided that the provision of the Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill, 1995, extending the number of Ministers of State from 15 to 17, is important. The last time that an extension of this kind was undertaken was in 1979 when the Act was amended to extend the number of Ministers of State from ten to 15, which was a 50 per cent increase. This is a minimal increase relative to the change in Government, administration and the involvement of the EU in the everyday workings of Government.

It is vitally important that we recognise the huge impact of the EU on various Government Departments, including the extended administrative work that has to be done and the increasing amount of information coming from Europe which various Departments have to digest and circulate to the public and consumer. In addition, the Departments must inform and advise people with regard to all of the variations and benefits and the other aspects of both cohesion and structural funds which are now being provided.

This adds much extra responsibility to the Departments, and in the final analysis it is the political heads of the Departments which must take responsibility in this important area. Proposing an addition of two Ministers at this stage is opportune and necessary for the effective functioning of Government.

It is interesting to hear Fianna Fáil speak of the lack of necessity for this proposal as it was the party which increased the number of Ministers of State previously by over 50 per cent. It is also interesting to hear Members of the Fianna Fáil Party make statements against this proposal, both in this House and the Lower House yesterday, because four or five weeks ago, while that party was acting as a caretaker Government, it made a number of appointments to State boards and semi State boards across the country. It packed and filled every vacancy or possible vacancy that existed with its own political hacks — a very unprincipled and uncommendable line of action.

However, now the party has the audacity to not alone object, but obstruct and do everything to obstruct the appointment of two additional Ministers of State. In addition, the then Taoiseach appointed two Senators to the House in his questionable position as caretaker Taoiseach. That party now questions——

Mr. Finneran

It did not require new legislation.

Mrs. Taylor-Quinn

——the right of the Government to introduce legislation and to do things above board and in a clear cut and accountable way to the House. The party therefore does not have any great credibility on the issue.

Specific responsibilities are being given to the two additional Ministers of State to be nominated. Regarding the Minister to be responsible for western development and rural renewal and who has responsibility for the western development and partnership board, this is a huge area which has been repeatedly and continuously neglected by Government over the years. Senator Howard has clearly outlined to the House today the drastic situation which exists along the west of Ireland at present. There are huge economic difficulties in the area. There is a huge problem with regard to the age profile of the population in the west. The result of all this is that in many areas the spirit, hope, energy and vitality which existed in communities is quickly being, and has been, drained from them.

I therefore commend the Government on deciding to appoint a Minster for western development and rural renewal. It is most depressing and dispiriting for many people in rural areas, and the west of Ireland especially, to go around their townlands and parishes and to see the number of households which have been closed down over the past 20 to 30 years and to witness the huge decline in the population of the area. It is both dispiriting and depressing, and if this Government does something positive, everybody should seriously commend the Government for doing so.

Last Sunday two weeks in Athlone Rural Resettlement Ireland held a very large meeting attended by representatives from all groups across the country, including the bishops. At that meeting there was a very warm welcome for the announcement of the appointment of the Minister designate for western development. He was attending as an observer and there was a very warm welcome for him and for his appointment. We should recognise that.

Are those who oppose this Bill, whether it is the Progressive Democrats or Fianna Fáil, saying that this appointment should not be made? If they are saying that this appointment should not be made, what is their alternative suggestion? We have not heard an alternative proposal. The onus is on them to let us know what their alternative proposal is. I was listening this morning to Senator Roche, who is usually full of great ideas. He abounds with information, knowledge and proposals and ideas.

Mr. Roche

Thank you. I will put the Senator on my Christmas card list.

Mrs. Taylor-Quinn

I was waiting for Senator Roche to tell us exactly how he would do the job and how the job should have been done. Unfortunately, I did not hear the positive proposals that I expected. Maybe some of his colleagues will now make that type of positive contribution.

Mr. Roche

Wait until you come to our amendments, Senator, then you will hear a few proposals.

Mrs. Taylor-Quinn

We must recognise that real problems exist where there is a sense of hopelessness within communities and in people. There is a sense of isolation when they feel they cannot get to the centre of power, the agencies or the Departments that could help them. There is a real need for some sort of co-ordination in that area. I believe the Minister designate for western development can be the political head, the person who will pull the various Department and semi-State agencies along with the communities. Many voluntary bodies exist in rural areas across the country and these deserve the full support of Government and Government agencies. This new appointment will provide the essential conduit to bring the various interested parties together and I have full confidence in my colleague, Deputy Carey from Clare.

We in Clare are particularly happy that the Minister designate is Deputy Carey, because we know that he comes from the west, comes from Clare, from a constituency that is beset with problems. The inclusion of Clare in the Western Development Board is a very welcome announcement and we are happy that the Government has taken this additional county into the Western Development Board area. He has the knowledge and experience of all the problems that beset the West. He is quite confident and capable of getting on with the job and doing what is necessary.

Deputy Carey has much support and help coming from the various organisations already in place. We are fortunate in County Clare to have two national leaders in this area, Father Harry Bohan of the Rural Resettlement Organisation and Mr. Jim Connolly of Rural Resettlement Ireland. These gentlemen have pioneered developments in the west and are doing and have done something dramatic currently and in the years gone by. They will be of great assistance. With them Deputy Carey will be able to extend what they have done in Clare right up across the west. That is extremely important.

Senator Howard touched on another point in his contribution and I would like to mention it as well. Deputy Carey will have to beware of a certain amount of obstructionism that he may find within certain outfits, maybe for certain political reasons. That is something that he will be very well aware of. He has come out of a good political county, he knows what political confrontations are like in Clare and he understands what is absolutely necessary. If anybody can fight through the various difficulties that he may be confronted with, Deputy Carey will be able to do it. I can state that from my experience and knowledge of him because I have soldiered with him in the Oireachtas since 1981 and for years previous to that within our respective parties.

This is a very important and good appointment. Criticisms have been made, particularly by the Progressive Democrats. They ask why was this appointment not made when all the other announcements were made, particularly on 20 December when the Taoiseach was announcing the Government. Again one should reflect on the circumstances in which the Government was formed, the difficulties that were encountered and the strange political upheavals which occurred. The Government did a very fine job in putting together a programme for renewal in the way they did and putting in place a Government which I believe will be an effective and decisive one and one which will work for the benefit of the Irish people.

It is a pity Senator Dardis has left because in the course of his contribution he made a statement in relation to the Minister of State designate, Deputy Doyle. He referred in particular to a statement made by her yesterday and a document they received. It is unfortunate that the Progressive Democrats should involve themselves in such petty activity. The realities are that yesterday the press officer of the Progressive Democrats rang the Department and asked for Deputy Doyle's speech to the other House. That speech was subsequently faxed to the Progressive Democrats. The heading of the speech cover said "Minister of State designate Avril Doyle", but they chose to make political hay out of a situation because it was fronted by another Department leaf. It is extremely unfortunate to be so petty about a very minor issue and to ignore the fundamental area of responsibility that she is being given in relation to public service reform and semi-State accountability.

I would expect that a party such as the Progressive Democrats, who have repeatedly spoken about privatisation, more accountability and more productivity from the State and semi-State sector, would come into this House and welcome such an appointment, an appointment that will make the semi-State sector more effective, more accountable and more productive. This appointment, therefore, must be very broadly welcomed. Equally, the Minister of State designate has responsibility for the strategic management initiative which covers all Departments of State. She is capable of doing a very successful job and will do the work that needs to be done.

In most contributions we have heard very strong support for the appointments and then again there has been much negative criticism. We have not heard any positive proposals, from those who criticise as to how they would do the job but I hope that before the evening is out somebody from the Opposition will come up with their positive proposals in relation to both areas of responsibility. Everybody accepts that both areas of responsibility are extensive and quite onerous and will involve huge work on the part of the Ministers of State and those working with them.

Why not give Deputy Carey one of the jobs given to an existing junior minister? The reason is it is an afterthought — a clever ruse to create a special job for a special friend at the taxpayers' expense. I have no doubt that the man in question will do a good job and I wish him well. I have no problem with either the man or the post. The West is in need and I agree with Senator Howard in this regard. I always admired him and no-one could fail to be impressed by his sincerity.

I know about the west and about poverty in Donegal. Tógadh mise i lár Ghleann Fhinne — I was brought up in the middle of Donegal in a place called Glenfinn. I know what it was like not to have electricity and running water. However, because of the influence of Fianna Fáil Governments over the years, thank God those days are gone. I was happy to be in my home town of Killybegs two weeks ago to see the new fishing vessel. A Mayo man, Kevin McHugh, following the lead of people like Seamus Tully, John Bach and other sailors in Killybegs like Martin Howley, sailed a £25 million boat. Those in the West can do this, but they need as much help as they can get. I will make a special plea to the Minister when he is appointed to provide a grant for the next fishing boat from Killybegs and not force fishermen to go to Norway to borrow money at high rates.

Mrs. Taylor-Quinn

A legacy of the Fianna Fáil Government.

Mr. Lydon

As I said, I have no problem with Deputy Carey or the post, but I regret the way it way created. It is one of the most sickening examples of political patronage which we have ever witnessed. We are creating jobs for which the taxpayer will have to pay. I wonder what the workers in Packard Electric who are forced to work in Victorian conditions say about this. Despite the work of the unions over the years since the lockout, they are forced to work in conditions far removed from those of Ministers of State.

The Government's defence that these two new posts are necessary will not wash — they were afterthoughts, payments for services rendered. They were created by a desperate man to keep control of his party and keep enough votes in case of a heave. I for one will not support this cynical exercise.

I call on Independent Senators who have not been appointed as members of a committee to preserve their independent integrity and to vote against this Bill. Senator O'Toole said he would reconsider his position if anyone in the House said Fianna Fáil would do away with these ministries if back in Government, which I am sure it will. I repeat what the Leader of my party said yesterday — and again today — that he would do away with them as soon as we are back in office, which will be nine months or a year.

I congratulate the new Leader of the House, Senator Manning, who is a decent and honourable man. I feel for him today because he must be embarrassed at having to bring this Bill before the House. I know it is not the type of thing which he would have invented. I make a special appeal to the Independent Members who are always so vocal in standing up for what is right to put their money where their mouths are, not to let this cynical political jobbery go through the House, but to let it be seen for what it is.

Mr. Quinn

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Hogan, on his first return visit to this House. I only discovered today that it is almost his first time in this Chamber; I had not realised that in his time the House was located in the other room.

I am anxious to talk about this Bill because it clearly raises some issues which are quite important. It is perhaps appropriate, therefore, for me to speak about the proper role of this House. It seems clear to me, from reading Bunreacht na hÉireann, that the Seanad was not intended to obstruct or frustrate the Government of the day. Two steps were taken to militate against that: a guarantee of a Government majority by having 11 Senators appointed by the Taoiseach and the very restricted powers of the Seanad to delay legislation. The situation now has changed because of a change in Government. At most, the Seanad was given the power to deliver a slap on the wrist to the Government of the day. I have never had any problem with that because I see the value and strength of the Seanad as a consultative body, which was clearly the intention of the 1937 Constitution.

If used properly, if it performs in such a way as to command respect — and I have spoken here before about us having to earn that respect — it can have a most beneficial effect on legislation. Many Bills can benefit from the wide range of views and the cooler atmosphere in this House. I was very impressed in listening to Senators Howard and Taylor-Quinn, the views of those from the west who were able to speak from personal experience.

The role of an independent Senator is to support the work programme of the Government of the day, to seek to influence the Government in the details of legislation and to improve, refine and enrich legislation as it goes through the House. From that point of view, I was delighted with the steps Senator Manning — I am delighted to see the Leader of the House here and I congratulate him on his appointment — intends to take, and is taking, to ensure that this House is capable of operating in the manner intended in the 1937 Constitution.

In the two years I have been in this House, I have looked at legislation as the manager of a commercial company which has to make the right decisions in order to survive. One asks in each case if legislation is good practice or best practice and will it help the organisation to survive. In a competitive business such as mine, we cannot afford to make mistakes in a very competitive market place. That is exactly the way we in this and the other House should look at legislation.

It must be agreed that the tasks proposed for the new Ministers of State are very worthy ones. The problems of the West must be faced up to at this stage. I have drawn attention to them on a number of occasions and have urged that we develop the west as a centre for services, especially financial internationally traded services which are the job creators of the future. On several occasions last year when we debated the West, the setting up of large numbers of State bodies was suggested. I urged that at least some of their headquarters be located in the West and that some existing bodies, particularly the aviation body and the meteorological office, should be transferred there. The West is important.

Of course, when managers think about creating any new job, they take much more than the worthiness of the task into account. A prudent manager must also work within the resources at his disposal. In the private sector, at least, resources do not expand like elastic — one cannot always afford all the jobs one would like to create. I am concerned about this Bill because I did not hear any reference to a cost benefit analysis or to whether we will get value for money. I was somewhat concerned when the Leader of the House said he would not worry at all if there were more Ministers of State and did not refer to their cost and the value we get from them.

The objective of the Culliton report was to try to reduce the cost of doing business in Ireland to create more jobs. It seems essential that before we make any decisions we make some estimate of the value we are getting for it.

A manager in business has to set priorities. He or she has to accept that they have to make some hard choices. The choice very often comes down to either not creating a new job or removing an existing one to make room for a new one. A manager always looks closely at the issue of cost — not just the salary which goes with the job but the costs which invariably follow with each job created. In the present case, those costs seem to be quite considerable and dwarf the salary of a Minister of State. There is a car allowance, two drivers, a private secretary and other secretarial back-up, special advisers and constituency staff. Where a Minister is assigned to two or three Departments, some of these costs are duplicated or triplicated.

This morning, the Minister of State spoke about the Strategic Management Initiative and I can understand the aim to co-ordinate the various functions of different ministries. It is not a traditional management way to do it but, obviously, it is an alternative way. I heard nothing about costs. We have not been told the total cost involved and I suspect they have not been worked out. I wonder how many people have even thought about them. We certainly have not been told about what savings are envisaged elsewhere to allow for the spending we are now undertaking.

Another point which a prudent manager considers when making a decision is any precedent that decision would establish, because once it is created a job takes on a life of its own. People are always finding new tasks to do and they very rarely say they no longer need something. The bureaucratic machine just grows and grows like Topsy. Less than 20 years ago, we had only seven parliamentary secretaries, as they were then called, and now we will have 17 Ministers of State. That is a serious move and we should have done some sort of analysis of the value we are getting.

Another kind of precedent is involved here: every time a Bill such as this is passed it makes it easier to pass the next one. Why stop at 17? How long will it be before we have a Bill bringing the number up to 20, 24 or 30? Whenever a constraint such as this is loosened there is a chain reaction. There is a constraint with regard to the number of Cabinet Ministers because it is set out in the Constitution. Prudent managers sometimes create jobs for new tasks, but they do so when they judge that the return is appropriate to the resources they have available, and when they judge that the importance of the task is overwhelming and that it will give good value for money. I do not hear such reasons today and I do not see tests such as those being applied in this case.

The sad truth is, as we all know, that these jobs are not being created for the return they will bring nor because of the overwhelming importance of the tasks. Instead, they are being created simply out of political expedience.

I was impressed with Senator Lee's contribution; he spoke about motivation and results. He said that sometimes the motivation behind something can be wrong but good results are obtained. It seems to me that he is not speaking in general from a business point of view; management by objectives says that if one is going to get somewhere one has to outline what one is trying to achieve, and be determined and single-minded about one's approach.

This does not happen by accident and if there is the wrong motivation the right results are not likely to come from it. I would like to see some sense of that single-minded determination to say, "Here is what we want to do; here is what we are going to achieve", and set out a way to do it. That applies to the strategic management initiative which one of the Ministers of State will handle and western development which the other will handle. These worthy areas need to be attacked and the posts need to have a motivation behind their establishment. I do not get the sense that motivation was there in setting up the posts.

All this is highlighted by the fact that this Government is new and, therefore, every action it takes sends a signal about what kind of Government it will be in the future and, in particular, how it will tackle the problem of the mushrooming growth in public sector pay we spoke about on the Appropriation Bill a few weeks ago. It is further highlighted as this is the first occasion on which a Government in a minority in this House has brought a measure before us to consider.

It forces me to the conclusion that there is a radical difference in principle between, on the one hand, supporting constructively the work programme of the Government of the day which I have done and I will continue to do, and, on the other hand, supporting what I call political manoeuvring that takes place at a very high cost in State resources. No prudent manager in the world would approve these appointments for the reasons being advanced.

I have no option but to use my vote as, perhaps, a symbolic gesture in recognition of that reality. I wish the Government well but I regret that I will not be able to support this Bill.

Mr. Enright

I wish to share my time with Senator Reynolds.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr. Enright

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Hogan, to the House. I have known him for many years and I am pleased to see him as Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works. It is a Government agency of great importance to the country, particularly rural Ireland. He will bring energy, initiative, ability and honesty to his post, and I wish him well.

I would also like to wish the new Leader of the House, Senator Manning, every success in his appointment. He has shown great initiative and energy, and has a reforming zeal which will be of benefit to this House and its Members and to our democratic institutions. I also wish the leader of the Opposition, Senator Wright, every success. He was an outstanding Leader of the House when his party was in Government and I wish him success in Opposition.

In November and December of last year we passed through a difficult and traumatic period. A number of the debates in the Lower House were televised at the time and rarely, if ever, can there have been so much interest in those debates by the public. Many people say that there is no interest in politics, no interest in what happens in Leinster House. A minority throw their eyes up to heaven and say "They are all the same there". During that period great attention was paid to what was happening in Leinster House because people were concerned about the chain of events and that there was a lot of strain on our political system. They were concerned to see the Labour Cabinet members walk out, the Taoiseach resign and then to see the President of the High Court resign.

The events showed that among all parties and independents in Leinster House there is a great reservoir of common sense and that we have a functioning democracy of which we can be proud. It is a tribute to the democratic system to see the changes that have taken place; to see a three-party Government without an election having taken place. Those events have strengthened our democracy.

In Opposition, and in Government, the Taoiseach has always shown an interest in improving the democratic system. He has spoken of Oireachtas reform on a regular basis. The Bill before us is part and parcel of a system of improvements being brought about. It is good that so many changes and proposals are being put forward by the Taoiseach and the Government.

I have been a Member of this House for only a short time and I am aware that this House was short-changed with regard to the committee system. The foreign affairs committee was the only one on which we had any representation and that was wrong. The ideas and proposals that will be brought forward to involve Members of this House in the committees and to make the committee system work are of importance to everybody. Those proposals will be teased out so that all Members of this House will be able to play an active part in the committee system.

I support the decision to appoint Deputy Carey as Minister of State with responsibility for western development and rural renewal which are important responsibilities and I am glad to see them addressed. On western development, I come from a county that borders the West at Galway and Roscommon, and being on the east side of the Shannon we lose out considerably in regard to grants. People in the West get larger grants than us. Similarly, people in County Roscommon also get higher grants; the borderline is the river Shannon.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

We need them all.

Mr. Finneran

The Senator will not get near these countries at present.

Mr. Enright

We want to favour areas which suffer from the special problems of unemployment, emigration and depopulation. We suffer from them and my only regret is that the Minister's remit does not extend further to take in parts of County Offaly. I wish Deputy Carey well in his Department. I have worked in the West and I have seen the joy as emigrants return for Christmas, and the sorrow as they leave afterwards; it is a tragedy. John Healy's book, "No-one Shouted Stop," and other publications written the 1950s are as relevant today as they were then. We have to see what we can do for these areas. As Deputy Carey comes from the West he has a greater capacity and ability to make progress.

The last person who tried to do something for the West was former Deputy Tom O'Donnell when he was Minister for the Gaeltacht.

Deputy Doyle was Minister of State at the Office of Public Works for a relatively short period — approximately 15 months — and during that time she was an outstanding success. She has been given responsibility in her new post as Minister of State at the Departments of the Taoiseach, Finance and Transport, Energy and Communications to achieve a level of improvement and cost effectiveness in the services being provided and to ensure the taxpayer is getting value for money. I have known Deputy Doyle for a long time; she has considerable ability. If given the opportunity to co-ordinate the roles of the different Departments and spearhead initiatives, she can achieve considerable savings which will be of benefit to everybody.

Senator Quinn made the point — I admire most of his contributions and listen to them attentively — that as a manager of a commercial company he had to earn profit to survive. I accept that commercial companies have to be profitable. It is tough in business. If a business is not making a profit, no one is going to carry it. One either stands or falls on ability to pay their bills and meet commitments. In business, one has to examine each item, analyse the situation and make a decision. However, there is a difference between running a commercial business and a democracy. In a democracy, one must be interested in those who are not able to look after themselves and decisions must be taken in their interests. One must try to assist those who, through no fault of their own, do not have the capacity to make ends meet. That is the way democracy works. In his own way, Senator Quinn, by putting forward a viewpoint totally different to mine in regard to such matters, shows the effectiveness and strength of our democracy. I would hate to be part of a Government that made decisions on a commercial basis.

We referred to decisions being made by semi-State bodies. At all times, these decisions have to take into account the ordinary family and person. If all decisions were to be made on an economic basis, one would not have a properly functioning democracy. Decisions have to take into account the feelings and the lives of those people. My decision to vote in favour of the Bill is taking this human element into account.

The Government made a number of wise decisions such as that to leave Mr. Flynn as EU Commissioner. Whatever differences we have in either Houses, they are internal ones. We are able to sort them out on an amicable basis because we understand each other.

To leave Commissioner Flynn in his position was a correct and wise decision. We improved our standing in Europe by ensuring that somebody from a different political party was left on Ireland's Commissioner. The decision to leave Deputy Jacob as Leas-Cheann Comhairle was also the correct one. This precedent of appointing the Leas-Cheann Comhairle from the Opposition has now been set and I hope it will continue. The present Cathaoirleach is also an excellent and fine one.

The appointment of the Ministers of State will help to ensure a properly functioning Government. I wish the two Ministers of State and the Government every success.

Mr. Finneran

I congratulate Deputy Hogan on his elevation to the post of Minister of State at the Department of Finance and wish him well. He deserves the promotion. It is a great honour for him, his family and County Kilkenny. I have no doubt that he will do a good job. I knew him when he was a Member of this House. When he was elected to the Lower House, he retained his ability to communicate with people.

Our sole purpose here is to pass legislation that will allow the Government of the day to appoint two extra Ministers of State. I am opposed to this legislation on the basis that it is putting an extra cost on the State. There are also more sinister reasons as to why this legislation has been brought before this House.

I wish to refer to the formation of this Government. When it was formed in late December I was conscious straightaway that it was lopsided as ten counties and two constituencies in the midlands and West had neither a Minister nor a Minister of State. That applied to the last speaker's county. There is no Minister of State in Laois, Offaly, Westmeath, Longford, Leitrim, Roscommon, Sligo, Cavan, Monaghan, Donegal and the constituencies of East Galway and East Mayo. Of the 26 counties over which we have jurisdiction, ten — and two constituencies — do not have representation at ministerial or Minister of State level. A whole stretch of our country had been left unattended and ignored in the formation of the Government.

On the morning the Government was to be formed and the Taoiseach appointed, we had the sad saga of 16 people for 15 positions. It was only at the eleventh hour that a formula was devised so that somebody could sit at the Cabinet table with no greater say than I have, even though, nowadays, we hear most of what is going on in Government. The confidentiality of Government does not seem to be as tight as in years gone by. That in itself started the rot. Subsequently there was an announcement that there would be two new Ministers of State, Deputy Doyle and Deputy Carey. Deputy Doyle was to have responsibility for three Departments and Deputy Carey Minister of State for western development.

If that was the intention of the Government in December, I would say it was thinking well, had the West in mind and would at least have an intention of appointing a person with a voice at Minister of State level. That was not the intention in December 1994. Deputy Carey was owed a position and was to be given that of Leas-Cheann Comhairle. This position was not available on the basis that it would cause a political row. The Taoiseach deferred to the leader of the Opposition and left the Leas-Cheann Comhairle in his post. As an afterthought a new position was created and Deputy Carey was announced as future Minister of State for the West.

That was and is a cynical exercise. It does not seem sensible that a Deputy from Munster should be a Minister of State for the West. There were some fine candidates in the West, people who had given long service and could have given good service in the Gaeltacht, which is being ignored because no representative from the West is allowed to be involved there. Such candidates include Deputies Paddy Harte, Dinny McGinley, Pádraig McCormack, Paul Connaughton, a former Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture and Ted Nealon, from the declining area of Sligo-Leitrim, which is the constituency of the Acting Chairman. Only the naive or the totally dedicated, entrenched——

Mr. Reynolds

I bet the Senator forgot about the representatives from Roscommon.

Mr. Finneran

——members of Fine Gael——

Mr. Reynolds

Deputy John Connor from Roscommon. The Senator lost his memory for a minute.

Mr. Finneran

——could see a reason or justification for what is being done. It is a cynical political exercise to accommodate people to whom commitments had been made.

Senator Taylor-Quinn castigated the outgoing Government for certain appointments that were made prior to the last Government being dissolved. She mentioned Fianna Fáil Ministers but failed to mention two of her present colleagues in Government, Deputy Michael Higgins, who made ten appointments and Deputy Howlin who appointed six people, one of which was very controversial, to the Irish Medical Council. If Senator Taylor-Quinn wants to give information to this House on appointments, she should give the full information and not chop off the bits which might not suit on the day. This seems to have been the situation with her on this occasion.

My party leader said in recent days that on return to Government he will repeal this legislation, which is appropriate. There is no good governmental, administrative or economic reason for the appointment of two extra Ministers of State. There is of course two good political reasons, to look after two people who have given commitments to their party leader. It is extraordinary that Fine Gael are bearing the brunt of the criticism of the legislation. Labour and Democratic Left are not waiting in the wings for one of their Deputies to be made a Minister of State. Fine Gael is here to bear the brunt of this political decision which had to be taken to appease people because of a decision made on the day the Taoiseach was appointed and the Government formed and because the Taoiseach had to back off from confiscating the position of Leas-Cheann Comhairle. That is the position.

I could not but be impressed by the logical debate by Senator Feargal Quinn. How could we spend £500,000 on each Minister of State's position and all the trappings that go with it, when 280,000 people are unemployed? I do not see how anyone could justify that. It was quite arrogant of one of the people not yet appointed — and who cannot be appointed until the legislation goes through this House and is signed by the President — to have already taken the title Minister of State. This has been stated in the House on two occasions today and evidence has been produced to support that. That is an arrogant approach which pre-empts the decision of this House, and pre-empts the debate by taking this House for granted.

North of a line from Dublin to Galway apart from one Government Minister and the Taoiseach, there is no Minister or Minister of State. There are two wrongs here: one is total neglect and the other is the cynical exercise. I am not so sure that the decision to appoint a Minister of State with responsibility for the West will help with all the problems in the West because it is being done for the wrong reasons. It is an afterthought and I cannot see it doing much more than propping up a political party in County Clare. I cannot see where the present proposals will help the development of our peat reserves, our family farms, or the declining population, particularly in Leitrim, North Roscommon, and parts of Sligo.

An opportunity could be provided by the appointment of somebody from the Connacht region who would understand the problems. I could support such an appointment, but I cannot support the proposal before us which is the cheapest political stroke attempted in the last 25 years. It sends out all the wrong signals if in order to accommodate somebody for political purposes legislation is proposed to create two jobs with all the trappings of office and extra staff, while the live register shows an unemployment level of approximately 280,000 people. I am opposed to this legislation and will vote against it as my party will. I hope all others who are not part of Government will also vote against it. I know that while some on the Government side, in both Houses, may not vote against it they are not particularly overjoyed with what has happened in recent times.

Mr. Reynolds

I congratulate my colleague Deputy Phil Hogan on attaining ministerial office. Deputy Hogan and I shared a room in the confines of Seanad Éireann in 1987. He has longer strides than me and has made better progress, but I hope my short steps will catch up with him sometime. I have no doubt he will make a very good Minister of State in the Department of Finance and we look forward to working with him over the next two and a half years.

This debate amuses me somewhat in the sense that Fianna Fáil and the PDs, but Fianna Fáil in particular, have accused this Government of political expediency in the proposed appointment of two Ministers of State. Perhaps I should remind some of the Fianna Fáil Members how this came about. The break up of the previous Government was precipitated by the appointment of the President of the High Court. Due to Fianna Fáil intransigence in this appointment, their partners in Government walked out leading to a unique political situation. The former Taoiseach decided, against all precedent, to appoint two Members to Seanad Éireann when he knew he would be leaving office. When the last Government between Fianna Fáil and Labour was formed, a Minister of State was appointed specifically to look after the reorganisation of Fianna Fáil. If that is not political expediency I do not know what is. It is a bit much for Fianna Fáil to come in here on their moral white horses and accuse the new Government — which has come into office under extremely difficult circumstances — of political expediency.

A number of errors were made in the formation of this new Government but the Taoiseach had the honesty and decency to admit this in the Dáil as well as in the media. That is a precedent for this House and for politicians. Mistakes will always be made but it is an extremely good point in any person or party to admit mistakes and examine how they can be corrected. Those mistakes have been corrected.

Senator Finneran's argument opposing a Minister of State for western development, does not stand up. In the last Government, the Fianna Fáil Party had one Minister and two Ministers of State in the west of Ireland. When those people were in office, the western bishops decided to protest and informed the Government that people in the west were dying on their feet due to the inaction of that Fianna Fáil-led Government. However, when we appoint a Minister of State for the West Fianna Fáil oppose it. If that is logic I would not like to hear what Senator Finneran might say about the plight of people in the West during previous periods of Fianna Fáil Government.

It reminds me of a statement made in the Lower House by the late James Dillon when he said a lie well told, told often enough and damned if the truth will ever catch up with it. Fianna Fáil are trying to throw much. Some of it will stick and some will not, but that which sticks can be politically embarrassing to this new Government. I do not mind that; it is opposition. I do not mind political embarrassment, but I do mind the hypocrisy behind it. If we are to move forward in this country we will have to show that politicians are above the hypocrisy attaching to the criticism of these appointments.

I welcome the appointment of Deputy Doyle to an onerous position as Minister of State. Deputy Doyle has shown her ability, energy and commitment to the political process in this House and in the Lower House over a number of years. She has experience as a former Minister of State and I have no doubt that she will make a great success of the brief she will be given, even though it is an onerous one. Her ability and commitment to the task will be worthwhile. I have no doubt her term as a Minister of State will be of benefit to this country and a success for herself.

The appointment of Deputy Carey as Minister of State with responsibility for western development was welcomed by the former archbishop of Tuam, Dr. Joseph Cassidy, and the current bishop of Clonfert, Dr. John Kirby. When the bishops presented their final report to the former Taoiseach. Deputy Reynolds, some months ago, one of the requirements was that there would be a Minister for western development.

Nobody can criticise Deputy Carey on his commitment to rural Ireland or development in rural Ireland. One does not need a geographical base. If someone has a commitment to a project, it does not matter where they are living. If they are committed to that project they will enact legislation and do their best to ensure the project is a success. Senator Finneran said that Deputy Carey did not come from the West of Ireland. When I was in school I was always informed that Clare was in the West of Ireland and along the west coast. Maybe it has changed in the last couple of months, but the last time I was there it was still on the western seaboard.

The same problems exist in Clare and are experienced by the people of Clare as are experienced by the people of Leitrim and Sligo and all over the West of Ireland, Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan and the Border regions. This is a very important time for development in that region. We are lucky to still have the peace process. The Structural Funds are coming into that part of the country. There is also development along the Border, including financial development and development of the infrastructure. This is all coming on stream at the same time.

It is very important that this is coordinated properly and that the money is injected into the areas that need it most. It is important that disadvantaged areas are looked after. Areas which have not been the target of Government spending for 25 years must get the incentives and financial commitments which will put their economic prosperity on a par with that enjoyed by other areas in this country.

The first announcement by this Government in the West of Ireland was in County Leitrim where a sister company of an international packaging corporation in the United States has decided to locate a wood pulp plant providing 350 jobs. I have represented County Leitrim since 1987 in both the Dáil and Seanad. If anyone wants to see a microcosm of economic deprivation, they should come to County Leitrim.

The county's population has declined substantially since the turn of the century and now stands at 25,000. This Government has shown its commitment to County Leitrim, and indeed to the west of Ireland, by putting this very large industry into the area where is needed. I have no doubt that when it develops people will come back to reside in County Leitrim, County Roscommon which borders it and other counties in the West. It is the life blood of the county and the development that will take place in the county.

This Government has given a realistic basis to its commitment to the area and to the West of Ireland. Deputy Carey has a difficult job to do. Family farming has changed as there are fewer people staying on the land. There are fewer people staying in the rural hinterlands; they are trying to move into the towns. We have more social problems in the larger provincial towns in the west. We have difficulty enticing industry into the West.

Deputy Carey's task will be difficult, but I have no doubt he has the energy, commitment and ability to make a success of it. He will be in the Department of the Taoiseach and have the ear of Government. He needs co-operation from all politicians and community developments in the area he represents and will be looking after. If we can co-ordinate that project properly, when we come back here in two and a half year's time the people in the West will give a vote of confidence to Deputy Carey and this Government for their commitment to the area.

I have no doubt that over the next number of months as a Minister of State with those responsibilities he will meet people. He has already met a number of people who contacted him before his appointment highlighting the difficulties that are in the West. His commitment to those people and the other community groups he will meet will certainly be positive.

I have no difficulty supporting the appointment by this Government of two extra Ministers of State. I disagree with my Independent colleague. Senator Quinn, when he stated that he did not think it was a commitment by the Government to the areas to which these people were being appointed. It shows a great commitment by this Government to schemes and problems we must resolve. As I stated previously, I believe both Ministers of State, when they get the vote of confidence of this House of the Oireachtas, will be extremely energetic, able and committed. They will show by their work that the furore created by Opposition parties was political expediency and not what their new leader has termed, constructive opposition politics.

Mr. McGowan

I welcome the opportunity to express my views on this important issue. It is fair to say that the Labour Party have deserted the House completely because they could not stand beside the proposals that are being made. This proposal to appoint two Ministers of State sends the wrong signal to the country at a time when industry and jobs are at stake in every part of rural Ireland.

Senator Quinn is not aligned to any political party in this House and made a fair and honest contribution when he referred to the cost of this proposal. He is a successful businessman and an example to the country. He did not waffle when expressing his intention to vote against the proposal to appoint two additional Ministers of State. No matter how it is presented, the average small businessman, who is forced to take measures to stay in business, will see these appointments as a Government dilemma. It is an even greater dilemma where I come from.

I do not understand how the north-west and the Border counties can be ignored and why the services of Deputy McGinley and Deputy Harte especially, after all these years are not recognised. Deputy Harte never put a knife in Deputy John Bruton's back; he supported him. We all have to swallow difficult things in political life at times, but I do not know how Deputy Harte will campaign to hold his seat in Donegal North East with a Labour Party candidate on his tail. Fianna Fáil will not lose the seats held by Deputies Blayney and McDaid, Senator Maloney thinks he will get a seat. Deputy Harte will be struggling, especially when he has been passed over so many times, like today, for more superficial reasons which this House and this country could never accept.

Today we witnessed the greatest display ever of crocodile tears about the West in the House. Never before has a party attempted to do what is being done in this instance. It is an insult to the West because there are no structures in place to give a Minister of State funding or anything else. All he will have is a title office, back-up, communications, meetings and real political propaganda.

My Labour colleagues must have got the message because they have just arrived in the Chamber. I know they find it hard to swallow this legislation. Their party chairman, Deputy Kemmy, said he was finding it hard to stomach the proposal. I am sure the other members of the Labour Party have the same problem. We have had to listen about transparency, honesty, openness, prudence and soon. What is being done is not going down well in the country. Ultimately the people will exercise their judgment on the issue. Senator Quinn has been courageous and honest in the House this evening.

Recently, because of the amount of business transactions and expenditure of the local authority, the Donegal County Manager carefully examined the cost of appointing a solicitor to administer the affairs of the county. He reported back to the council, indicating that the cost of running the office, including backup, administration and services, would be enormous. Consequently, Mr. McCloone recommended that for sound business reasons, Donegal County Council should not appoint a solicitor or legal adviser.

The new President of the EU, Mr. Santer, in his speech of 17 January 1995 indicated that he and his colleagues were determined to improve the Commission's budgetary and administrative culture. He also indicated his intention to have good management at EU and national level and to eliminate waste under every heading. When he examines the expenditure relating to the appointment, without any purpose, of two political people, he will not see a good reason for it.

Yesterday the Government parties highlighted their intention to end long term unemployment but little evidence of the intention being put into practice or of their giving the kind of example they ought to be giving to those they are expecting to perform well. County enterprise partnership boards were set up in a blaze of publicity when it was stated that they would solve the problems of rural Ireland. There is a county enterprise partnership board in every county, including Clare. The Minister explained that this would involve a community approach and that the boards would not employ consultants, that instead they would use those on the ground to promote small industries and jobs.

It is extraordinary that the Donegal County Enterprise Partnership Board, which was not the first to be established, has now run out of funds. Last Monday seven projects were approved and 28 were turned down. We will not have funding for any projects, yet we were encouraged to seek applications for every type of project from child care projects to tourism, fishing, net making and furniture manufacturing. We have hundreds of people looking for the support offered, but there is no money.

I do not see a magic delivery of jobs to the west. While the bishops are right to welcome this development, they must say "God bless you. It is great to have your thoughts, even if it is only an expression" because that is all they will get. How can one explain that a Minister of State will deliver something when a forerunner, the county enterprise partnership boards, have no money after less than a year in operation? I do not believe there are any intentions to do anything, other than become involved in a propaganda campaign for those foolish enough to believe that something can be delivered.

There is a structure in County Donegal called the North-West Community Development Institution which is sponsored by the Minister for Education but it had to close on the last day of December because the Minister refused it funding. It has 47 applications on its books for small projects. One of those was to conduct research on granite in Fanad, where it is in plentiful supply. That small institute was closed, although it had an important function in putting projects together.

I credit my colleagues with having the same experience in rural Ireland as I do. A small operator looking for help often gets none from the IDA, tourism organisations and the bank. Each institution refers him to the next and he is told he must have a plan, a consultant and a presentation. In Donegal there was a community development institute which prepared plans free of charge. It helped people who intended to set up small businesses by making representations and typing their presentations but we failed to keep that organisation alive.

How can the Minister for Education approve setting up a structure and two new Ministers of State, while at the same time she does not have funding to support the community development institute in Letterkenny, which was doing important work in a county which suffered so much? It is in the Border region, has high unemployment and needs jobs.

Mr. Burke

What about the county enterprise board?

Mr. McGowan

As I explained, the county enterprise board has no money. Last Monday it passed seven projects and turned down 28. I am trying to be constructive and give facts. I will discuss these issues privately and publicly.

All organisations and companies are feeling the pinch and being asked to cut back, prevent sloppiness, put better management in place, be leaner and prepared to compete in Europe and further afield. That is the only message which can be given because we have to survive. The previous Minister for Finance left the finances in good shape for the present Administration. However, if the Government continues as it has started there is not much hope of us being competitive in Europe.

The Government hopes to get funding from Europe to develop rural areas and projects. That money from Europe will be taken under false pretences. It is supposed to help under-developed areas but money has been spent to appease political problems. The case made for funding from the EU is on the basis that we have large under-developed areas and high unemployment. The funding is supposed to provide jobs but not the type of job on the agenda this evening. This reflects no credit on the Government, the country or to any of us who hope to get European funding for projects.

No matter how well the Taoiseach or the Minister couches or presents this, the people of rural Ireland will judge. The young generation is alert and highly educated and it is hard to fool or mislead them. They will realise this is not what they expected. This was not the promise made by Democratic Left or part of the high expectations they had of the Labour Party. People did not think they would have to carry a burden of administration this country has never had before. If the only contribution made on this side had been from Senator Quinn, those reading or watching the news would be able to judge, as they will.

Where do the Border counties stand? This has not been mentioned. Is there any programme for them apart from the framework document? The Taoiseach is in London today for discussions on that issue and I wish him luck. However, we have forgotten the high agenda and its importance; we are back in the old political rut of survival. There is nothing in the new programme for Government which focuses serious attention on the economic plight of the counties which suffered on the southern side of the Border. Senator Reynolds spoke about a wood pulp factory in County Leitrim — it will take more than that to solve their problems.

Leitrim is one of the forgotten counties, with Sligo, Cavan, Monaghan and Meath. There is no recognition of the deprivation those Border counties have suffered over the last 25 years.

Mr. Cregan

Senator McGowan's party was in power for some of that time.

Mr. McGowan

The programme for Government does not contain any effort, input, determined moves or recognition that there is a problem. Perhaps I am wrong and next week the Government will appoint two more Ministers of State. Deputy Harte put plenty of effort into cross-Border schemes. He has advised, spoken and written more than anyone on that subject.

The bottom line is that employment is listed as a priority in A Government of Renewal. Surely the Government is not asking people to believe it is seriously concerned about providing jobs other than the two we are being asked to approve in this House. I am glad to be able to vote against that and I think a number of people on the Government benches will vote for the measure with their tongues in their cheeks. Labour is finding it hard to stomach that proposal.

I hope the bishops are as pleased with these appointments in 12 months' time as Senator Reynolds indicated they are today. This House is dealing with a Bill which is giving the wrong signal at this time. I do not want to stray from the topic but in days to come we will be dealing with the intention to cut revenue to local authorities. That is obvious, although it is another day's work. This House has done a disservice to the nation today, one for which the ordinary taxpayer will pay dearly. I hope the EU will recognise that we are now accelerating in the wrong direction; that will happen very quickly.

Mr. Cotter

I had hoped Deputy Hogan would be here so that I could congratulate him on his appointment. However, I am happy to see Deputy Toddy O'Sullivan here, a fellow Corkman and friend. I congratulate him on his appointment and wish him a happy and successful time in office.

I am happy to support this Bill. Many harsh words have been spoken by Fianna Fáil during the day. I listened with interest to Senator O'Kennedy who carried out a thorough analysis and put the boot in as deeply as he could. It surprised me a little. While he spoke the old adage that people in glasshouses should never throw stones occurred to me. He served as a Minister in a number of Governments and some of his colleagues would have been demonstrably guilty of abuse of power from time to time. I can offer an example. On 18 December 1991 I asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs to give details of the number of staff employed in his private office. He told me that he had 16 staff employed — he nearly had one for everybody in the audience — in his private office. That was an absolute scandal. Everybody in his constituency received a letter once a month and a phone call every second day. The people of Ireland were asked to pay for that. When one is in a glasshouse one should be careful about throwing stones. That was the position three years ago.

Mr. Cregan

The Senator did not ask about their salaries.

Mr. Cotter

I did not. The information I received was adequate. It gave an indication of the ethos of that Government. The people who are screaming and shouting in the House today about these two appointments should be mindful of their past and should be a little more open minded in how they handle such matters.

We are trying to move into a new era of openness and accountability in Irish politics. I wonder if we will have the same performance from Fianna Fáil as we had in the 1980s when they vehemently opposed the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Deputy Lenihan was sent around the world to seek support for their policy. When they came to power, however, they automatically accepted it and used it to the full for their own purposes. The people will not be happy with such politics any more, they have seen enough of them. We should all be careful not to be seen to be hypocrites.

Mr. Kelleher

Vote against this Bill then.

Mr. Cotter

I hope we will be careful not to be seen as hypocrites. This Government has set itself an enormous programme; Senator McGowan and I have copies of the programme. It aims to achieve a huge reform of the system before it leaves office. There is no doubt that additional personnel are necessary in order to carry out that programme. After all. Deputy Collins needed 16 people to run his private office. The Government needs 17 Ministers of State, and it can be demonstrated that it does.

Mr. Cassidy

Not one of them came from Connacht-Ulster.

Mr. Cotter

Connacht-Ulster will be all right.

Mr. Cassidy

Not one Minister of State. It is a thundering disgrace.

Acting Chairman (Mr. Farrell)

The Senator without interruption.

Mr. Cotter

We have no difficulty justifying the need for the appointment of these two people. They have specific duties and have huge roles to fulfil and I am confident they will do a good job. I know the two people personally and they are committed and decent. They will give the appointments their complete attention and they will do a wonderful job.

The Government is setting out on a difficult road. It has a unity of purpose which is clear in the programme and this means it will achieve much of what is contained in the programme. The reform package is incredible. It will try to deal with every aspect of political life in the Oireachtas by opening up the system and making it more user friendly. It will seek to give people a better insight into how decision making and governing works. As the programme is fulfilled, people will probably be happier with the type of politics that will emanate from it.

It is getting late and I do not wish to labour the point. I was happy to bring to the attention of the House the answer I received on 18 December 1991. It was necessary to put it to the Fianna Fáil Members in order to bring them back to sanity. I hope it will have that salutary effect.

Mr. Kelleher

The Taoiseach stated in the Dáil on 15 December 1994:

This is a republic. Public office is a privilege that must be paid for in hard work and long hours. The Government must go about its work without excess or extravagance and as transparently as if it were working behind a pane of glass.

I can assure the House that by presenting this Bill that pane of glass has become very opaque. In the recent by-elections in Cork the Government parties campaigned on policy. However, the Fine Gael Party distributed literature which at the time we called "sleaze politics". Today that party is in Government and is doing exactly what it said it would never do. I quote from this literature: "Ministers have appointed a total of 30 special advisers. There will be more appointments in the coming weeks." That was printed in Fine Gael literature when it was in Opposition. Everybody on that side of the House is a clairvoyant — how right they were.

Fine Gael promised that there would be transparency, accountability, honesty and integrity. I am happy to speak against this Bill but I am saddened by the cynicism that will be shown to the electorate who have told us time and again that they do not want jobs for the boys and girls but honesty, accountability and hard working Government. That is what the Leader of the Fine Gael promised on 15 December.

Over the past number of years I have noticed that the public is not happy with politicians. It has come to believe that the arms of the State exist to reward politicians and those who support the right leader at the right time and, today, this Bill demonstrates that.

The history of the appointments must be considered. The Constitution allows for 15 members of Cabinet but, unfortunately, it does not set a maximum figure in respect of Ministers of State. I can assure the other side of the House that if the Constitution had not set out the number of Cabinet Ministers, Deputy Rabbitte would be a Cabinet Minister, bringing the total to 16. Instead, to accommodate Democratic Left, which was required to ensure that the Government had a majority in the Dáil, the jester was brought in to provide the jokes at Cabinet level. The Minister was provided with a car, but not a vote. This demonstrates that this Government will do anything, at any cost to the taxpayer and that is the most important aspect of the matter.

There is a fear among the public that we are not here to legislate or to advance the nation but to advance our own cause. I am only stating the facts. This can be borne out by the low polls in recent years in all elections and the fact that the young people are not voting at all, so there is a need for a word of caution. It is a dangerous day for democracy when we have polls as low as 50 per cent. I believe it is because of the insults, the innuendo and the attacks on the last Government in particular by members of Fine Gael that brought about this scepticism and cynicism. For that reason, I am honestly amazed that Members can stand over there and defend this legislation.

I hope that Members on this side and some Members on the other who campaigned diligently to ensure that the last Administration was brought down, was given a rap on the knuckles in the by-elections in Cork, will support us today, if not, it will be a sad day not only for him and for her but for democracy in general. That is why I reject this Bill out of hand. It is a flagrant abuse of power and an insult to the people.

Mr. Cassidy

I feel very strongly about the representation at Government and Minister of State level exercised by the Government in relation to the part of the midlands, the West and the part of Ulster with which I am familiar. If Members consider the province of Ulster, for the first time in many years Ulster has no Minister. I am appalled to think that there is no one from the province of Ulster suitable, in the Taoiseach's opinion, to represent us and to bring our problems to the Cabinet table. I waited for the appointment of Ministers and then the appointment of the Ministers of State and realised that there was no person appointed from the province of Ulster. This is an insult to the electorate of those counties.

I can remember as far back as the mid-1950s and representation in the Oireachtas but I cannot remember any Government that did not recognise the counties of Ulster by appointing a Minister, a Parliamentary Secretary or a Minister of State. It is unfair, particularly having regard to the sensitive timing of the progress being made on our island at present and the terrific work done by the last Government, all past Taoisigh and, I would like to think, every public representative to bring about the peace initiative which we are all enjoying at present. I am very disappointed that the Taoiseach, Deputy Bruton, has not appointed someone from the province of Ulster.

In fairness to the last Taoiseach, he had a very good geographic spread. I say that with great pride as he was on the right hand side of my parish in the county of Longford. The present Taoiseach, Deputy Bruton, was our local Deputy for 12 years as north-west Meath and Meath were part of one five seat constituency. I wish him well in his new portfolio. I stated here in 1984 that he would go further than a Minister.

As I said, I wish him well but I am disappointed he has not recognised the Ulster province at this time. It is not very fair to the people there, in particular County Meath, which he knows so well and has represented for the past 20 years. I cannot fathom how he did not use his influence when appointing the Ministers of State and when he was looking towards the wider European constituency of Connaught-Ulster that he did not appoint a Minister of State or Minister from that area. If we draw a line from Donegal to Limerick and across to Kildare we go through 14 counties, including the four counties of northern Leinster of which you and I, Sir, are a part, but not one Minister of State has been appointed from that area.

I wish the two new Ministers designate well; one of them is a former colleague but, I am disappointed as a public representative because my philosophy has always been to get as much as I can for my own area when it comes down to slicing the cake. The national picture and national policies have to be considered and various allocations have to be made but it has never happened that such a large part of Ireland was left without a voice at the Cabinet table or representation by way of a Parliamentary Secretary or a Minister of State.

Fourteen counties, from Donegal to Limerick right across to Kildare, have been left out. Practically 50 per cent of our country has been left without a Minister of State. Were it not for the fact the Deputy Higgins and Deputy Kenny have been appointed Ministers, there would be no representation from that area at Cabinet level or at Minister of State level. I know the task that confronts us as public representatives and Members of the Oireachtas coming from these counties will be extremely difficult.

I should have started by congratulating the Minister of State present on his appointment. He served his time in the Seanad, made many meaningful contributions. He is a Leinster man, and came from that great hurling county of Kilkenny. I wish him well in his Ministry. I ask him today to bring the message back to Cabinet that the part of Ireland that is not represented in Cabinet be given special recognition when representations are made by the Oireachtas Members on behalf of the people from those areas.

The Minister of State here comes from Leinster, the superior province. The former Taoiseach, appointed a Minister or a Minister of State from every county in Leinster, with the exception of one and that county had Deputy Dermot Ahern as the joint chairman of the interparliamentary body. That is a fair spread of Ministers and Ministers of State. I have nothing against any person who has been appointed by this Government. I wish them all well and I know they will all do their best but when I see the number of Ministers from the east coast, I wonder if we are going back to the 1983-87 Administration and the thinking in that particular era. I hope they will not be like those who represented us at that time, because since I have been involved in public life I would say that was the worst Government this country ever had. It only stayed in office so as to keep the alternative Government, Fianna Fáil, out. Fianna Fáil has no more right to be in office than any other party, but it has served Ireland well when in office. It served job creators by giving incentives to people to create job opportunities.

With the best balance of payments since Richie Ryan and the late George Colley handled the State's finances in 1972 and 1973, this Government has been presented with a golden opportunity which no other Minister for Finance, Taoiseach or Cabinet have had in the past 27 years. We are to receive allocations from the EU in the form of Structural Funds, Cohesion Funds and other money which has been put in place by the previous Administrations. Since 1987 a carefully considered plan has been put in place by experienced politicians and civil servants and we are in a position to look forward with enthusiasm, energy and confidence to considerable growth over the next four or five years.

Yesterday I contributed to the debate on the forum report on unemployment. I said the country lacked an incentive from the Government to create jobs and I also spoke about the 12 per cent levy. Ministers of State, including those to be appointed, Ministers, the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste should put together a formula in the forthcoming budget to provide jobs and opportunities in all parts of Ireland, because, as I said, this is the best opportunity for 27 years.

We must ensure that if a county, constituency or province, as has happened, is not represented by a Minister or Minister of State, it is not left out in the cold. We heard about the serious situation which faces the west and it has been recognised by the bishops and politicians from all political parties over the past number of years. What hope is there for future investment in severely disadvantaged areas — I live in an area along the borders of the severely disadvantaged areas of Cavan and Longford — if the Government does not make an even allocation of the cake? I hope we are not returning to the days where everything went to the east coast while the rest of the country could forget about progress. In the last Administration both parties were fair in allocating of money, job creation and decentralisation, locating Departments in towns throughout the country. I am talking about creating further wealth by creating more jobs and opportunities.

There has been a transformation in the transport infrastructure over the past five or six years. As someone who visited Cork every two weeks for 18 years but who has not been there for a couple of years, I could not believe the investment in the main Dublin to Cork road when I went visited there during the by-election. A Cathaoirligh, you will be aware of the various infrastructural improvements which have taken place in our area, including the Lexlip-Maynooth-Kilcock by-pass, the Mullingar by-pass, the Longford by-pass and the Athlone by-pass, the largest project undertaken in the midlands, which cost £40 million. This investment came from the last Administration. Each Minister or Minister of State gave the people they represented an equal opportunity by bringing new industries to these areas. Connaught and Ulster must have the infrastructure to develop. That is why I am disappointed that no Minister of State has been appointed from the constituency of Connaught-Ulster.

When the names of Ministers and Ministers of State were announced, a senior parliamentarian said to me that it was unbelievable that 14 counties got no recognition in the form of a Minister of State. I wish the Deputies well if they are appointed. I will, however, oppose the Bill for the simple reason that my part of the country, with 14 counties. has been neglected and I will voice disapproval with my vote.

Mr. Magner

I will make a short contribution to this debate, although with a great lack of indignation. Not too long ago we could have swapped speeches but a change in direction seems to have altered people's perceptions enormously. I congratulate the Minister on his appointment and wish him well. His calibre is known in the House and I sure he will enjoy his term in office.

It is a fact of life that new Administrations do things differently. I did not agree with trying to remove Pádraig Flynn as Commissioner designate in Europe. I did not agree with the proposition to remove Deputy Jacob as Leas-Cheann Comhairle of the Dáil. I have no doubt but that if the old Administration was in power, that is, Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party, and it decided to appoint two extra junior ministers for one reason or another, a vicious attack would be launched by Fine Gael on a Government which would do so a thing. That is politics.

I rose because of remarks made by Senator Kelleher in relation to the Civil Service and programme managers, which I object to. I was happy to see my partners in Government convert to the programme manager system, as indeed I was to see Fianna Fáil convert. A myth has grown which is totally false and which Ministers in the last Administration on the Fianna Fáil side would accept were false. It arose from an article by Liam Cahill, who was programme manager to Deputy Andrews. It suggested that the Labour Party managers were so cute and brilliant that they ran rings around civil servants appointed by Fianna Fáil Ministers. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Those of us who know the civil servants involved know they are of the highest calibre. In my humble opinion they did an excellent job. Nobody ran rings around anyone. There was as much hitching in the Labour Parliamentary Party about how well Fianna Fáil was doing in this Administration as I am sure there was in the Fianna Fáil party rooms about what the Labour Party was doing. That is the natural tension in Government.

To suggest that one group who were tagged as civil servants were less than capable is nonsense. Nobody should apologise for bringing in people from outside, maybe it has been a closed society for too long. This, however, does not reflect on the calibre of civil servants. We have been particularly fortunate in that regard. We might have had scandals involving politicians but we have had very few, if any, involving civil servants; they have been a credit to the State. It is wrong to repeat what was essentially Liam Cahill's private view. Frankly, I thought he had a rather jaundiced view. We might have run circles around him a few times but we certainly did not do it in the overall programme managers system. I object to that and I wanted to put it on the record.

As regards the appointment of the two Ministers of State, my view is that if the Government wants to do that and if it thinks that it can do a better job by appointing those two people, then fine. I am sure Deputy Jacobs is far happier to be Leas-Cheann Comhairle with Deputies Carey and Doyle as Ministers of State, than the opposite. Perhaps if we put it to a poll within Fianna Fáil that would be the judgment expressed by the victims, i.e., Padraig Flynn and Deputy Jacobs. As I said, I would not get too upset about it — that is how Governments do business. I wish both of them well.

Mr. Mooney

As always, one can count on my friend and colleague, Senator Magner, to get to the nub of the argument. I am going to comment on the programme managers system but not in the context in which Senator Magner addressed it.

To put this in context, the Bill is part of a reform package which has been promised by the new Government. I am pleased that the Leader of the House in his public statements over the last few days has, once again, committed himself to reform of the Seanad. Senator Manning has been one of the stoutest defenders of the concept of the Upper House in my time here, both inside and outside the House. As I indicated last week, I welcome his appointment as Leader of the House, especially in that regard.

It is indicative of his commitment to reform of the House that he moved very quickly in an area which had caused me some annoyance — and I stated this last year on the initiation of the committee system by the outgoing Government. It was patently obvious that the decisions taken in setting up the terms of reference and membership of those committees excluded, to a large degree, the Members of this House. It seemed that these decisions were taken in isolation with a somewhat narrow focus towards the Dáil. My concern — and it was a concern shared by Members on all sides of the House, especially Senator Manning — was that for the first time since the 1937 Constitution, there was the initiation of a select committee system which was exclusive to the Dáil and its legislative process, and excluded the Upper House from that legislative process.

As a result of realpolitik— and I do not really mind why — we now find ourselves going from a famine to a feast. I welcome the numerical reality of this House. The Seanad will now have substantial membership of the restructured committees and the new committees which are being set up.

Mr. Farrelly

I hope the Senator's colleagues will agree.

An Cathaoirleach

Senator Mooney, without interruption.

Mr. Mooney

We all have to follow our own lights in public life. For that reason, I welcome the developments as they affect this House. It is good for democracy. That sounds like a cliché but I really believe it is good for democracy. It is important for Senators to have a direct input into the legislative process with their colleagues in the Lower House.

If my memory serves me, controversy surrounded this Bill as a result of the decision by the then Attorney General, Harry Whelehan, to seek clarification of the confidentiality of Cabinet proceedings in the context of the beef tribunal report. That was the first time I had heard in any great detail about the existence of the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924. Subsequent to the Supreme Court judgment which enshrined Cabinet confidentiality, there then arose questions as to the role, function and relationship of civil servants and Ministers. The debate continued last autumn and a commitment was given by the outgoing Government — I stand to be corrected on this point but certainly an indication of a commitment was given — that there would be a review of that Act as it applied to the confidentiality clause and the role of civil servants.

There was a famous incident, which I believe was unprecedented, where a senior civil servant of a Department went public on his interpretation of events in response to a Minister who had interpreted the same events in his fashion. It built up to a controversy.

Mr. Magner

Mrs. McGennis

He might be before the Government is over, or after.

Mr. Mooney

He has not even taken a second breath. Detailing the history of the junior Ministries to date brings me to the role of junior Ministers juxtapositioned with that of the programme managers concept. I welcome this concept and in terms of modern Government, it should have been addressed long ago. There is no question that it works well and effectively. The questions raised, such as those addressed by Senator Magner, by those outside the process in the main are valid. Perhaps they believe more than they should in the pages of The Irish Times. I am sure the programme managers, be they political appointees from outside the Civil Service or civil servants, go about their jobs in the way that I hope the public see us as public representatives going about our jobs, as efficiently and quickly as possible.

There are bound to be tensions but I raise the role of programme managers only in the context of the role of junior Ministers. Journalist Ken Whelan, writing in yesterday's paper, raised various valid points about the role, power and influence of junior Ministers. Will the Minister of State say whether the Government is contemplating, at some point during its Administration, a review of the role, functions and influence of junior Ministers? It appears to me, from reading Mr. Whelan's article and from my own somewhat limited knowledge as a public representative in the House, that some junior Ministers have greater power and influence within their portfolio than others. Mr. Whelan made the point that some junior Ministers had delegated statutory powers but even within that limited role, they still had to defer to their senior Cabinet colleague. In many cases, it depended very much on the personal relationship between the Cabinet Minister of the day and the junior Minister as to what would eventually be achieved by the junior Minister.

Without giving away too many secrets, as I am sure Senator Manger is aware and I am sure the same will happen in the current Administration, human foibles and personality clashes have occurred and will continue to do so. This inevitably has an adverse effect on how the junior Minister effects his or her role. I hasten to add, that difficulty is not something that the Minister of State, Deputy Hogan, will have to experience as he is temperamentally well suited to the job.

In appointing new junior Ministers I question whether we should consider reviewing the structure and role of junior Ministers. I made the point, tongue in cheek, about the transformation from five Parliamentary Secretaries to ten junior Ministers, but that was a recognition of the new role of Ireland in a European context. Government Ministers were finding it extremely difficult physically to travel from Ireland to the centre of Europe and look after their Government and parliamentary briefs and constituency obligations. Some sharing from a purely physical point of view, if not from a management efficiency point of view was inevitable and I have no problem with that.

In some cases junior Ministers do not have anything other than a grandiose title — I am not suggesting that is the case in the Minister of State, Deputy Hogan's case, I make the point generally. There should be a review at some point.

Deputy Doyle is to be appointed to a position with a long-winded title — Minister of State at the Departments of the Taoiseach, Transport, Energy and Communications and Finance. I understand there will be three separate offices and sets of staff. I hope somebody will buy her an extra car to get around to all the offices. I am pleased that one area of her remit, which is of particular interest to me as a member of the National Economic and Social Forum, will be a greater focus on improving the delivery of services with a view to making them more customer oriented. It is long past time when people who rely on the social services should have to put up with long waits and unsympathetic local office personnel, and have to go to many different offices to find out their entitlements. I wish Deputy Doyle well in that part of her portfolio. That she has been given it is on the initiative of the National Economic and Social Forum which has gone into great detail on this matter.

I am against the idea of more jobs for the boys and girls and, as Senator Magner correctly pointed out, if I was on the other side of the House I would argue the same case. There is an argument there which has been well aired by my colleagues but I wanted to raise aspects of the debate that need to be addressed.

I wish the junior Ministers well. I have no doubt they will be in this House on several occasions and I look forward to meeting them and hearing what they have to say, and I hope they will absorb what we have to say.

Mr. Neville

I congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy Hogan, and wish him well. I know he will do a good job. He has been an excellent Opposition spokesman in his field; he produced an excellent paper on food safety, and if he brings the same energy to bear, as I know he will, in his new post he will do well. I support this Bill.

For years we have talked about the decline in rural Ireland and argued that something should be done about it. We debated the matter at length in this House. I am conscious of the decline in rural Ireland. We have recently seen evidence of this in my own area. We have for many years been calling for a Minister to pay special attention to this and we should welcome the Government's decision to establish a special ministry to cater for rural Ireland.

If the Minister of State can initially slow down the rate of decline it will be a success in itself as the decline in rural areas is gathering momentum. I hope, at an early stage we can slow it down, bring it to a halt and reverse it. From time to time we have criticised decisions that have affected rural Ireland, for example, the decision to close of post offices and garda stations, so this a welcome proposal.

Deputy Carey has a specific interest in rural Ireland as he comes from a rural constituency. He is a man of enormous ability and he will do a good job. He has seen a positive development in his area — rural resettlement whereby people from urban areas come to live in country areas. This was the first positive sign for generations in the approach to rural decline. Fr. Harry Bohan from Clare spoke at length on this matter.

Deputy Doyle served in this House as Deputy Leader for Fine Gael when I first came here, and was at the time one of the best performers. I remember she spoke for two and three-quarter hours on the setting up of the Environmental Protection Agency and she maintained her interest throughout her period in the Seanad. Her job to reform the public service, make it more friendly and reduce the bureaucracy must be developed. We know how bureaucratic the system is and we understand how to get through it. The civil servants are not to blame; it is the system which must be changed.

Senator Cotter spoke about what happened with the Department of Foreign Affairs and others spoke about bringing outsiders in to advise Ministers. I would remind Fianna Fáil that during their time they brought in outsiders, and when they were leaving office they appointed them to the Civil Service. They will, of course, forget this, but I make the point.

I welcome the appointments; the two people concerned are excellent. I know them well and they will bring energy, expertise, commitment and success to their portfolios.

Mrs. McGennis

I will refer to the Minister's speech rather than the Bill as it does not warrant the serious debate given to most other Bills which come before this House. This Government was set up as a result of turmoil and trauma. At the outset it said that it would lead by example, it would do away with ministerial pay rises and it would set up a committee to review the use of ministerial transport — specifically the jet. I am speaking from a disadvantage because any references I make to what this Government intends to do are based on comments made on television, radio or in the newspapers.

This morning the Leader of the House told us he would ensure that we would have a copy of the programme for renewal. We still do not have that despite the Government being comfortably ensconced. Indeed, some of its as yet unconfirmed Ministers are comfortably ensconced in their offices. We should have had a copy of the programme if we are to consider seriously the additional two Ministers of State, without making speeches such as were made on both sides of the House. We should be able to see what this Government intends to achieve — we do not know what it intends to achieve nor its objectives.

I referred to three commitments made loudly on news programmes and elsewhere. I question whether leading by example means appointing two additional Ministers of State and, establishing additional committees of the House which will require huge numbers of staff and Members to be paid out of the public purse to service them.

There was also a commitment that this House would be sitting five days a week. From what I heard from our party Whip, it seems that committees will meet on a Tuesday, the House will convene at 10.30 a.m on Wednesday, break at 11.30 a.m for parliamentary party meetings, go back into session, sit until 10.30 p.m at night and again the following night.

Senator Quinn approaches his work in this Chamber, possibly because he claims not to be a politician despite the fact that he is an elected Senator, in a very businesslike and orderly fashion. He said in his maiden speech in this House that when he made a contribution on any issue here, he would make it in a concise, short and professional manner. Will he, or any Minister, explain how the working of this House, from 10 a.m until 10 p.m on two days and then two extra committee days on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, contribute in any way towards an efficient running of the operations of the Oireachtas? However, I will refer again to the implications of those kinds of sittings on families.

The Government is proposing a committee on children and the family and in so doing, is ensuring that Members who are parents, urban and rural — especially rural because this Bill refers a lot to appointing a Minister for the West — will have to sit on this committee and will not see their families from Sunday to Saturday. That is a contradiction in terms.

There is one striking difference between this Government and the outgoing Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition, which worked very well and relations between the two parties were extremely good. Both myself and Senator Magner had very good——

Mr. Magner

The Senator would need to be careful.

Mrs. McGennis

——dealings in the House; I will be careful in how I select my words. One of Senator Magner's colleagues was nicknamed "Joan Jet Burton"——

Mr. Magner

Unfairly, I thought.

Mrs. McGennis

I thought it was a fair nickname. We had got the public finances right and after 25 years, one of our major achievements was getting a ceasefire in Northern Ireland because of the excellent work of both parties, which was acknowledged. Now, all that good work, such as reducing the national debt, getting the figures right, the peace process and the list of legislation I got a few weeks ago showing the number of Bills — a record number — which have been put through this House — Senator Magner also referred to that in criticisms which came from his current partners in Government — has been ignored. We did that with 15 Ministers and 15 Ministers of State. If the people want to know who they should choose the next time they are voting for a Government, if for no other reason. they should choose a party who can do efficient and effective work with the minimum amount of Ministers and Ministers of State. Democratic Left and Fine Gael have given a prop to the Labour Government although one may as well accept that the common perception is that this is a Labour Government. They are even sitting in the front rows of the benches of the Lower House. People have been told it will cost them a pound per vote. Some of the Members on the other side of the House spoke vociferously — maybe it was the militant left — about costing a pound to the Exchequer when people cast their votes. The Ethics Bill said that political parties would be funded this way. People should realise that by doing that, it may cost them more. To prop up this kind of coalition, they will have to contribute much more in taxation for these extra Ministers of State, their entourage, etc.

I listened on the monitor to as many of the speeches as I could while trying to do some of the work the taxpayer pays me to do. The contributions from all sides of the House were excellent, but they were superb from this side. It was embarrassing to see the Fine Gael Members in particular having to defend a measure they would have torn us to bits over two years ago if we had brought it in.

Mr. Neville

We called for a Minister for rural development——

Mrs. McGennis

I will not take one iota from the need for a Minister for the West, but I was making a valid point on this. The Fine Gael Members and fair play to them took all the stick, while the Labour Party snigger and grin, as is its wont. While they are up there batting on behalf of their party saying "Your crowd did it, you are appalling etc.", did they not realise that the message they sent out to the public over the airwaves for the last three months is that we were deplorable and absolutely dreadful and that we could not be trusted to do anything? Now they are adopting our policies.

Many of us are members of local authorities. Often, one would go to the manager to give support to someone looking for planning permission to build a bungalow. He then says that it could not be done. One might tell him that another bungalow has been built in the area and he says it does not constitute good planning and development and that we should not continue the errors of the past.

I want to refer briefly to the Minister's speech. I do not want to get the Minister's civil servants or programme managers into trouble, but——

Mr. Reynolds

Ministers of State do not have programme managers.

Mr. Magner

Yet.

Mrs. McGennis

I have never been a Minister or a TD so I am ignorant of these lofty and worldly matters.

The Minster opened his speech by saying that this Bill is required by the Government to give effect to the decision by a Government. That is the most telling part of the speech and of the Bill. This Bill is only required by the Government. It is not required by the people, by those who elected this Government.

I do not know what kind of flak the Minister got in the other House but it must have been heavy because he was prepared for the same here. The Minster says that he got a lot of criticism. I find the reasoning behind seeking this increase in the number of Ministers of State somewhat difficult to fathom. I know my colleague——

Mr. Hogan

Will Senator McGennis read my speech into the record?

Mrs. McGennis

I might. I am extremely annoyed it was agreed that Senators could only speak for 25 minutes. I normally make my speeches, as the Leader of the House will confirm, in around three to ten minutes and I do not tend to go further than that, but there is plenty of meat on this one. The Minister said he finds this viewpoint, this reluctance and criticism about these additional Ministers of State, difficult to fathom.

I missed the contribution of my colleague, Senator Kelleher, but I see from his documents——

Mr. Magner

The Senator was lucky.

Mrs. McGennis

Mr. Magner

One would not need to have a PhD to discover about who the Senator is talking.

Mrs. McGennis

Mrs. McGennis

The Senators party will not be long catching up.

Mr. Sherlock

We came too late, having let a paedophile roam this country.

Mr. Wright

Are we on a Bill? There is legislation before us.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I must ask the Senator to speak to the Bill before the House.

Mr. Sherlock

The greatest thing that happened in the political scene for the Irish electorate was to show there was an alternative to a Fianna Fáil Government. That is the most important thing for the people. The nadir of Irish politics has passed. Let us look forward to a future where we will have politics that will have a meaningful role for the people.

Mrs. McGennis

What about a mention for the Minister?

Deputy Carey will have to convince some of his colleagues that there are places other than Dublin and Cork that require funding. They have an opportunity now with the availability of Structural Funds to make a more meaningful contribution towards development. I am disappointed that issues like infrastructural development at Shannon have been reconsidered and that decisions have been put off on investment in ports like the Shannon Estuary. These are important major projects. While small industry and LEADER programmes are important, we need big projects in the west to put a halt to its visible decline.

I have been on both sides of the fence. I was Minister of State in numerous Departments and I was also a Government Minister. The disadvantage of being a Minister of State is not being at the decision making level in the Cabinet. I would have preferred to see Deputy Carey as a full Minister in the Cabinet with responsibility for western development. One can look back at the experience of Nuala Fennell when she had responsibility for co-ordination in an area. She left that office in disillusionment and frustrated at the inability of a Minister of State to co-ordinate activities within different Departments with responsibility for areas which overlap.

It is important to get a message through to the Government if it decides to appoint Ministers of State like Deputy Doyle with various responsibilities and Deputy Carey who will have responsibility for western development which encompasses a wide range of activities. Before he has even taken up office he has been snowed under with representations and correspondence from various organisations and communities. If these people are to be given responsibility, the Government must ensure that they are given the finances and resources to enable them to carry out their work. They must also stress to ministerial colleagues that these people have special responsibilities and that they should co-operate with them.

——unlike the former Taoiseach who did so on two occasions. The Cork result was a watershed in politics and a catalyst for change. Senator Dardis, followed by Senator Lydon, raised on the Order of Business and in his contribution today the question of Deputy Doyle's current status. Deputy Doyle is not and has never held herself to be the holder of ministerial office. The Taoiseach indicated publicly some time ago his intention to appoint her as Minister of State on enactment of the necessary legislation. She is not exercising any statutory functions or in receipt of any remuneration although she is, on an informal and unpaid basis, assisting and advising the Minister for Finance in relation to matters for which, if appointed, she will have responsibility.

Senator Dardis I understand was referring to a facsimile covering sheet issued from the Department of Finance with a copy of a speech delivered by Deputy Doyle. I was sitting beside Deputy Doyle in the Lower House last evening when she made her contribution. There was a clear reference at the top of her speech to "Minister of State designate". I hope that clarifies the misunderstanding.

Senator O'Kennedy asked whether the Government was prepared to consult the people on this proposal and dared us to state that we knew what the people wanted. The people will be consulted, as they always are at election time, not on the individual elements of our policies and proposals but on the totality of our policies and our performance.

We know that, throughout the country, there is a demand for greater consideration of the individual in his or her dealings with bureaucratic organisations. We know there is concern about getting optimum value for the vast amounts of money and resources spent through various public programmes. We know the sense of despair about the future which permeates every utterance by community spokesmen in the West. Today we are providing some of the instruments which will deliver to those people what they want.

Senator O'Kennedy's thoughts on the future of parliamentarianism and the alterations in the balance of power in our political system was undoubtedly provocative. It was also unnecessarily alarmist and pessimistic. The changes he outlined in the number of office holders over the years can be more accurately seen as an ongoing adjustment of our ministerial arrangements to the changing requirements of our population. Senator Manning also made it clear how great these changes have been. Senator O'Kennedy's attempt to reconcile his strong feelings on the role of Parliament vis-á-vis the Executive with his criticism of the Government's proposals to extend the committee system and the prospect of new chairmanships for these committees is extraordinary. There is and must be a clear distinction between Ministers of State, who serve the Executive, and parliamentary office holders, whose role is crucial in making the fundamental task of the Houses of the Oireachtas to ensure and control the actions of the Executive more meaningful.

Senator O'Kennedy spoke about our announced target for expenditure in A Government of Renewal of 6 per cent in net current supply services for 1995. This is a lesser increase than was recorded for several years. The increase was 8.9 per cent in 1991, 11.4 per cent in 1992 and 7.9 per cent in 1993. I am familiar with the 1994 Estimate and I am even more familiar with the 1995 Estimate. Over 10 per cent of an increase was recorded in 1994 over 1993. If we compare the figures for net current expenditure with inflation for the relevant years, we find that in the last four years these figures were significantly higher than inflation, when compared with the 1995 projections. We will have more information on that tomorrow.

I respect the business acumen of Senator Quinn and his advocacy of cost-benefit analysis of this proposal. What we look for is the co-ordination arrangements which these new Ministers will provide in a new cost-effectiveness in substantial expenditure Departments. I take on board the sentiments expressed and we will ensure the consumer of public services will get a better service than in the past, through the appointment of Deputy Doyle. We will also ensure that the territorial approach, advocated by Senator Lee, will be confined to the western territory and that we will see an improvement in the living standards and conditions of people in that area through the appointment of Deputy Carey. I am confident the appointees, when judged on their record, will represent good value for money.

While the contributions have been illuminating on issues ranging from the working of institutions in Letterkenny to the history of the institutions in this House, nothing said against the basic proposal of this Bill has carried any of the conviction necessary to alter my view that the Government is correct in proposing to appoint Deputy Carey and Deputy Doyle to the position of Minister of State. I commend the Bill to the House.

Mr. O'Kennedy

Somehow we did not think we would change your mind.

Question put.

The Seanad divided: Tá, 30; Níl, 27.

Tá

Belton, Louis J.
Burke, Paddy.
Calnan, Michael.
Cashin, Bill.
Cosgrave, Liam.
Cotter, Bill.
Cregan, Denis (Dino).
D'Arcy, Michael.
Doyle, Joe.
Enright, Thomas W.
Farrelly, John V.
Gallagher, Ann.
Henry, Mary.
Howard, Michael.
Kelly, Mary.
Lee, Joe.
McDonagh, Jarlath.
Magner, Pat.
Maloney, Sean.
Manning, Maurice.
Naughten, Liam.
Neville, Daniel.
O'Sullivan, Jan.
Reynolds, Gerry.
Ross, shane P.N.
Sherlock, Joe.
Taylor-Quinn, Madeleine.
Townsend, Jim.
Wall, Jack.

Níl

Bohan, Eddie.
Byrne, Seán.
Cassidy, Donie.
Daly, Brendan.
Dardis, John.
Fahey, Frank.
Kiely, Dan.
Kiely, Rory.
Lanigan, Mick.
Lydon, Don.
McGennis, Marian.
McGowan, Paddy.
Mooney, Paschal.
Mulcahy, Michael.
Farrell, Willie.
Finneran, Michael.
Fitzgerald, Tom.
Haughey, Edward.
Honan, Cathy.
Kelleher, Billy.
Mullooly, Brian.
O'Brien, Francis.
O'Kennedy, Michael.
Ormonde, Ann.
Quinn, Feargal.
Roche, Dick.
Wright, G.V.

Tellers: Tá, Senators Magner and Cosgrave; Níl, Senators Fitzgerald and Mullooly.

Question declared carried.

Agreed to take remaining Stages today.

Seanad Éireann debate - Thursday, 26 Jan 1995