Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 22 January 2013
653. Deputy Sean Fleming asked the Minister for Health the number of parliamentary questions that have not been replied to in full in 2012 in respect of parliamentary questions that he forwarded to the Health Service Executive or direct reply to Deputies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2977/13]
View answerMy Department received over 7,500 Parliamentary Questions in 2012. 53% of these questions concerned operational issues and were referred to the Health Service Executive for direct reply to Deputies. Many of these questions relate to individual patients and local day to day operational matters.
I would like to assure the Deputy that responding to the information needs of the Oireachtas is a priority both for my Department and the Executive. The Executive is committed, in the 2012 National Service Plan, to answering 75% of directly referred Parliamentary Questions within a period of 15 working days of receipt. Performance in relation to this target it is currently being met and will continue to be monitored closely. The Executive introduced a new I.T. system in the last quarter of 2011 and this has led to a significant improvement in its overall response time to referred questions.
In 2012, 4,045 questions were referred to the Executive for direct reply to Deputies. It should be noted that this figure represents a 63% increase on the volume of questions referred in 2011. Of this amount, 3,010 (74%) have been answered within the 15 day timeframe. Taking into account questions which took longer than the 15 day timeframe to answer, the figures show that 3,981 (98%) of referred questions have now been answered. 64 questions (2%) remain open and it is expected that these questions will be finalised in the near future. My Department holds regular meetings with the HSE's Parliamentary Affairs Division to monitor response times and to emphasise the importance of issuing timely and comprehensive replies to Deputies.
