Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Well, there were historically two Departments, because you had the Department of Labour and, quite frequently, it was labour and the public service. So you had all the HR role of the Department of labour and the public service carrying out the functions that Minister Howlin carries out now. The additional role that it was given was control of expenditure. It was a decision that came from a position paper developed by Deputy Richard Bruton in opposition, where we thought, with the events that we were facing into if we were in government, that you'd get a better control of expenditure if you had a distinct Minister looking after it who could be hands-on in terms of expenditure. Now, whether it lasts into the future or not, you know, when there's less pressure on the kind of things I do ... you know, if banking fully stabilises and the Central Bank is running the banks and you don't have the, kind of, hands-on thing that we had over the last couple of years with banking concern, I suppose there's a case to be made for re-amalgamating the two Departments. But it is a matter for the Taoiseach and the incoming Government, and there has been no thought given to it yet.