asked the Minister for Finance if he will make available the list of proposed coast erosion works prepared and completed recently by his Department.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Coast Erosion Works.
13.
I am sending to the Deputy a list of the cases in which requests for coast protection works have been made in recent years to the Commissioners of Public Works.
I should like, Sir, that list to be printed in the Official Report. Is that possible?
What?
I asked a Parliamentary Question asking the Minister for Finance if he will make available the list of proposed coast erosion works prepared and completed recently by his Department and the Parliamentary Secretary tells me that he will send it to me. I should like that list to appear as a tabular statement in the Official Report.
I have no control over how Ministers or their Parliamentary Secretaries reply.
I shall put it down again.
I considered the circulating of the list with the Official Report but I do not consider that the list which we have compiled is fully representative of the problem as a whole. Some of the cases we have are taken mainly from Deputies' requests time and again and other representations which we received and some of them may not be coast erosion problems at all. We have the entire list which I have sent to the Deputy and if it were published with the Official Report, it might be interpreted as including all the problems to be dealt with. I prefer not to circulate it at this stage.
May I ask for your ruling, Sir? If a Deputy tables a Parliamentary Question, is the answer given by the Minister or Parliamentary Secretary not for the information of the Deputies and the public and not exclusively for the Deputy who asks the Question?
He cannot keep it from the Deputies. If he gets an answer, the Deputies can see it and hear it.
The information requested by Deputy Lynch is, according to the Parliamentary Secretary, being given to Deputy Lynch.
I have no control over how a Minister or Parliamentary Secretary gives an answer requested.
With respect, I do not think the Ceann Comhairle has answered the question I posed to him. Is the information to be given for the benefit of the Deputy or for the benefit of the public and members of Dáil Éireann?
It is information for the Deputy. The Deputy has asked for information.
Then the answer is not necessarily for the members of the House but for the Deputy?
The answer is published in the Official Report.
No, it is not.
He will not do that —that is the point.
The list will be sent to the Deputy.
Surely there is no difference whatever between the accuracy of a document which issues officially from a Minister or a Parliamentary Secretary and the accuracy of a document which he publishes in the Official Report? Or are we to take it that documents which issue from Ministries are not accurate?
I have nothing to say as to accuracy of reports or otherwise. I have no control over the form in which a reply is given to a Deputy by a Minister.
May I submit this, on a point of order? Nobody is asking the Chair to control the form of the answer. All that we are asking is that if an answer is given, it will be recorded in the proceedings of the House.
Surely that constitutes what is answered in the question, apart from the form.
What we are asking is that whatever the Parliamentary Secretary communicates in reply to Deputy Lynch's question will not be addressed to an individual Deputy but will be published in the proceedings of the House. That seems to be a reasonable request. I never heard it refused before. There is nothing confidential in the information.
I cannot say to a Minister: "You must give the answer in such a form" or "You must give the answer in such a way." The Parliamentary Secretary has given the answer. He says that he will give the Deputy the list. I have no control over that.
The Parliamentary Secretary said that he had intended to circulate this list with the Official Report but then said that the information was got in odd kinds of ways and that he did not propose to circulate it with the Official Report but intended to give a copy to Deputy Lynch, who is the author of the question. The Parliamentary Secretary having made it clear now how he got the information and how it was compiled, there can be no objection to its being published in the Official Report, subject to the Parliamentary Secretary's qualification and Deputy Lynch's request, therefore, for publication could quite easily be acceded to at this stage.
The reply to the Question will be given in the form in which it was given by the Parliamentary Secretary.
Mr. Lynch
May I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to read for the House the answer to the Question which he is going to post to me?
Repeat the answer?
No, read the answer.
Read it out.
The Deputy could put it down as a Question next week.
I have sent the list out to the Deputy. The Question asks the Minister to give a completed list. This is a list to which something may be added any day. It is a list which I mentioned last week as being compiled as a result of requests made by Deputies, Senators and different people at various times. The important thing is that I have an open mind; I am not really objecting to its being circulated in the Official Report at all but it could be misleading. The jobs concerned have not been inspected in most cases and publishing the list in the Official Report could very well imply that this is a list selected for attention, which it is not.
May I put this to the Taoiseach? Questions are often addressed to Ministers and answered by Ministers approximately or so far as the information is at present available. Qualifications of that sort are quite normal and if the Parliamentary Secretary wishes to make this qualification, he can do so.
It seems to me that it would have been quite possible for the Parliamentary Secretary to have given reasons why he would not supply the information. Instead of that, he decided, out of courtesy, to supply certain information to Deputy Lynch, which apparently was not appreciated.
Arising out of the Parliamentary Secretary's reply and the Taoiseach's observations, it came to my notice that such a list was in existence through a statement of the Parliamentary Secretary and if there is such a list in his Department, why should such a list not be published now as it is?
I cannot allow this discussion to go on.
If there is any discourtesy, it is to me as a member of this House.
What is the Minister for Finance trying to hide? That is what it looks like.
I am just hiding this: I would advise the Parliamentary Secretary to be more careful when sending out information in future through courtesy.
What courtesy is it to get a Parliamentary Question answered? It is no courtesy. The Deputy has his rights and he will insist on those rights.
And we will teach you your business, if you do not answer Questions.
The Parliamentary Secretary gave more than he was asked for.
We are not in the least grateful to you for doing the jobs you are well paid to do. You will be made to do them.
What?
You will be made to do them.
You will make us?
Yes.
We will and we will make you do them.
You will make us?
As we made you in Sligo-Leitrim, we will make you.
It is hardly possible that the Ministers are going on strike this year?
Divil a much difference it will make, if they do.
As far as the Minister for Finance is concerned, certainly, none.
You are in a bad humour today. There is something wrong, whatever it is.
The Taoiseach is the person in the bad humour.
Is it a stay-in or a lock-out strike?