Vol. 498 No. 1
1 Mr. Quinn asked the Taoiseach if any members of the Government have made joint orders under section 12 of the Public Service Management Act, 1997, assigning responsibility to specified civil servants for the performance of functions in respect of cross departmental matters; if so, the matters, functions and Departments affected; the proposals, if any, being considered for making these orders in the future; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25555/98]
No orders have so far been made under section 12 of the Public Service Management Act, 1997. As the Deputy will be aware from my reply to a similar previous question, the purpose of section 12 of the Act is to provide, as necessary, for the assignment by Ministers or Ministers of State of responsibility to civil servants for cross-departmental issues and the associated accountability arrangements. The Act also requires, under section 4, that the heads of Departments and offices ensure that appropriate arrangements are put in place to facilitate an effective response to these issues. Ministers are aware of these provisions to which I have previously drawn their attention.
Issues of policy, of course, cross-departmental boundaries and there is a need to identify new ways of managing such issues more effectively in the future. The departmental strategy statements approved by Ministers earlier this year and laid before the House have identified a number of cross-departmental issues arising. I have asked the SMI implementation group to consider appropriate action now in relation to cross-departmental issues. I expect that such consideration will address the use of section 12 of the 1997 Act as a means of underpinning progress on these matters.
Does the Taoiseach agree that the effectiveness of the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Fahey, for example, would be considerably reinforced if an order was made under section 12 of the relevant Act? The Minister of State originally had responsibility for two Departments but the Taoiseach saw fit to give him responsibility for a third area. The inevitable turf wars and bureaucratic loyalties of various Departments will prevail unless an order is made under section 12 assigning officials in the three Departments — Health and Children, Education and Science, and Justice, Equality and Law Reform — to report directly and to be accountable to the Minister of State. This would enhance his effectiveness as Minister of State and would deal with the issues involved.
I will take the two issues separately. Deputy Fahey was appointed Minister of State at the Departments of Education and Science, Health and Children and Justice, Equality and Law Reform, with responsibility for overall children's affairs. In the day to day contacts between these Departments and the interdepartmental committee he chairs administrative arrangements have been made and are going well. There is no difficulty.
I agree with Deputy Quinn on the general point. The whole idea of section 12 is to try to look at what is called the strategic result area and to not only bring Departments together as we do at present but share outputs, resources, policy and funding. Section 12, as designed in the Act, came from an examination of the New Zealand system. I recently read, as part of the SMI implementation group's work, an examination of how it works; it is very sophisticated and seems to be very productive. However, it is not like our present situation, where there is an assignment order that the Minister must sign which gives the Minister total responsibility on a cross-departmental basis. The format of budgets, outputs and other matters is taken together. It is very useful and would strengthen the position of a Minister in that situation.
Frankly, we do not have the structure to do this just now and, while the section has been put into the Act, it would take quite a lot of work. The implementation group must work in other areas, but it has now turned its attention to this to identify how much work is involved. The areas that have been identified are in the departmental reports for this year. A number of areas where this is useful were signalled. I told both Ministers and the implementation group that we should take a number of them, not all of them, and try to make them work. That is in the work programme for 1999.
I appreciate the Taoiseach's response. Does he agree there is a serious systems failure in the Government in regard to the amendments to the Children's Bill, which has completed Second Stage in this House and is awaiting commencement of Committee Stage? Government amendments are still pending and, obviously, the Minister of State is having difficulties drafting them.
Some 22 months.
The previous Government wrote section 12 into the legislation to which the question refers because of the conflict of loyalty that civil servants have to their Department and the task in hand. Does the Taoiseach agree, bearing in mind his welcome in principle for the provisions in section 12, that if one looks at the actual performance in the area of childrens' legislation, they are not working? It may very well not be this matter, but given that the Taoiseach has overall responsibility, does he further agree that the section is not effective and that perhaps giving the Minister of State, Deputy Fahey, further effective co-ordinating powers through the establishment of what is de facto a task force would address this issue? If the Taoiseach agrees, why will he not do that?
The drafting of amendments has nothing to do with this. The amendments will be ready by Christmas. Deputy Fahey is an outstandingly successful Minister of State in this area. He has done more co-ordination and set up more programmes in the children's area than any of his predecessors. The number of programmes he introduced, the work he is doing in identifying social exclusion and going to the heart of families while working with organisations such as Barnardo's, which deals with people on the streets, and his enthusiasm for it is greater than that of any Minister of State of this Government or previous ones. He has no difficulty with co-ordination because he is driving this issue and putting so much energy into it. People in the Departments are quite keen and anxious to work with him and he is not having difficulties
The Taoiseach is missing the point.
I believe what was envisaged for section 12, which was taken directly from the New Zealand system, as part of the work done over the years since the Strategic Management Initiative, is useful. We should develop a scheme that ensures it operates and we have not done that. It has worked well elsewhere and we should use it here. It is a different system from our system of co-ordination over the years. The Minister of State still deals with different agencies and Departments.
If the Taoiseach agrees with it, why does he not implement it?
Because of the sheer work and time needed by the implementation group to get around to setting up the scheme. We have put it into the Act but no work has been done on the issue since 1992. This issue was identified some years ago and put into the legislation but the putting together of the scheme was not number one on the implementation group's list, or number three for that matter, but the group has been working on it since September.
It has identified a scheme where section 12 will apply to a particular area, for example, and the Minister responsible would set up an interdepartmental group which would share output, policy, resources and funding. That is entirely different from anything we have done before. We should build a model that can work and then use it in certain areas. The departmental reports have identified six or seven areas, which the implementation group has looked at this autumn.
I appeal to the Taoiseach to use this legislation to deal with the crisis in this city's taxi service. The relevant Ministers in the Department of the Environment and Local Government and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, have been unable to tackle the problems of people who have to queue for three hours at night to get a taxi, and firms who order a taxi during the day and must wait up to an hour. Business is being lost in the financial services centre because of the lack of adequate taxi services to enable people to catch flights out of Dublin. If the Taoiseach is to choose an area for joint Departmental action, will he choose the Dublin taxi service, particularly given the current Christmas crisis?
I do not think any section of this Act covers that matter. The Deputy was highly critical when I tried to take an initiative in this area — he told me it was none of my business, that it was a matter for the local authorities, but I went ahead and at least that initiative has introduced almost 900 additional taxis. Some of our local authority colleagues in the House have made moves in the past week, in the county councils and Dublin Corporation, which will perhaps assist the ongoing efforts.
Will the Taoiseach agree that his initiative succeeded in delaying action by the local authorities on taxi numbers, and was designed so to do?
Yes.
Will he now take an initiative to stop people having to wait so long for taxis? This is causing anger in the city.
I totally reject that criticism. For about nine years additional licences were not issued by local authorities but now, for the first time in two decades, we achieved an agreement between the various bodies to issue between 800 and 900 new licences. The only issue left to decide was whether they should be issued over a three year or four year period.
We cannot have a full scale discussion on the taxi service on this question. I have allowed latitude already.
Is the Taoiseach aware that part of the delay in providing additional taxis to Dublin was because the Fianna Fáil group on Dublin Corporation voted down any proposal to increase the number?
That is not relevant to this question.
It is relevant to the issue.
