Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

May I ask one last question on the parliamentary questions? In 2017, some 11,000 parliamentary questions were tabled. In the years from 2012 onwards it ranged between 7,000 and 8,000, but there was a major spike in 2017. Members do not table parliamentary questions for fun but because they see failures or people come through the door with an issue. It strikes me that there was something going on. Does the Department use the process of parliamentary questions to analyse the trends where the failures are happening? What does the Department do to address the issue in order that the system is fixed rather than that the individual problem is fixed?