asked the Minister for Justice if the recent speech by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in County Down in connection with contraception is in accordance with present Government policy in the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Minister's County Down Speech.
14.
The views expressed by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in the speech in question are his personal views. This is clear from the speech itself.
How can the Minister identify when a Minister is speaking or acting under the mantle of collective responsibility? Is it only when he marches into the division lobbies with the Taoiseach and the Minister for Education as on the occasion of the division on the contraceptives Bill? Is that the only manner in which we can identify a Minister who is acting under the mantle of collective responsibility?
Brief questions, please.
Taking into consideration the insecure times in which we live, is it conducive to good Government that Ministers making statements of such magnitude should identify themselves as speaking on their own behalf or under the cloak of collective responsibility?
I must ask the Deputy to consider the regulations governing Question Time.
Can the Minister indicate how he can in future identify that a Minister does not speak under the mantle of collective responsibility?
All I can say to that is that the Deputy can look to precedent from governments in the past as to when Ministers acted within or without the doctrine of collective responsibility.
Is that the Minister's best answer?
There is a fear of ideas on the other side and if a Minister or anybody on this side makes a speech on a policy matter and puts forward an idea, it is immediately seized on with suspicion by the other side. This does not come strange from a party who are entering on their fourth year in Opposition and have not produced a policy document yet on any subject.
(Interruptions.)
Order. Question No. 15.
Deputy Dowling is the honourable exception to that. He has recommended that women should be recruited into the Army.
Deputy Dowling has asked an important question for which he has not got a reply. When do we identify a Minister speaking on behalf of the Government and accepting the rule of collective responsibility or when do we identify him speaking for himself? Is it left to the Government afterwards to decide under which mantle he is speaking?
I am obliged to dissuade Members from repeating questions.
That is something which would be clear from the terms of the speech made and the context in which it is made. It is quite clear that the speech in question was a speech made by the Minister in his personal capacity to an association in Northern Ireland. If a Minister is speaking on behalf of the Government, he will say so in specific terms.
Recently I endeavoured to put down a question in relation to a Minister whom I believed was speaking outside the cloak of collective responsibility and I was informed that I could not assume that Ministers were speaking outside the area of collective responsibility, that they always spoke under the mantle of collective responsibility.
That is a statement, Deputy, not a question.