Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I wish to share time with Deputy McGuinness.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. The legislation has been much discussed and it formed a central plank of the policy of change the Government sought to spin to the public during the election campaign. Sadly, this is a bit of a fudge. The establishment of the Department is a solution to a political problem, one which arose previously when Fine Gael and Labour were last in power. At that time the Labour Party leader believed he should be Taoiseach and sought to create the machinations that went with that. The Office of the Tánaiste was established. It was an expensive extension to bureaucracy to which Deputy Barry alluded in terms of the growth of the public sector. At the time that was one such example. A Department was created purely to fulfil the ego of the Labour Party. The belief was that there was a necessity to establish the Office of the Tánaiste.

The same has happened on this occasion. The thinking of Fine Gael prior to the election is clear. Its manifesto promised an office modelled on the office of the ministry for children, not a Department. That was a copy of the example in the UK. The Government can spin all it wants about the high-minded commitment to reform which underlines the Bill but the simple fact is that the Department is being created because Fine Gael and Labour could not agree on who would be Minister for Finance. Those are the facts. The approach the Government is taking underlies that.

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