Mr. William Beausang:

I can quote the Minister on that issue because an editorial in The Irish Timesof 20 June referred to progress in this area as being painfully slow. In a letter from the Minister to the newspaper, which was published on 24 June, he made the point that he thought the characterisation less than fair on the basis of the series of reforms that had been enacted by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform since its establishment. In the area of Government reform, I mentioned in my opening statement the Protected Disclosures Act, the Regulation of Lobbying Act, the Freedom of Information Act, extending the scope of freedom of information, expanding the power of the Ombudsman and reforming the system of appointments to State boards. A significant programme of reforms has been delivered.

In terms of the deadline Deputy Fleming mentioned, we recall, being a party to that process, that there was to be a report back to Government, but in terms of looking at it on the official level, it went into the revised programme for Government in July 2014. We had been doing work prior to then, but it was officially endorsed as a Government priority at that time. From an administrative perspective, bringing a general scheme to fruition with the policy paper and the agreement on accelerated drafting is a fast-track approach to getting legislation progressed.