John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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I will start with the general and then move to the specific. We got this document last week. It is a list of all the allowances and in all the Departments. On going through it, it becomes immediately obvious that the Department of Education and Skills is the winner. It is No. 1 in terms of the number of allowances, followed by the Department of Justice and Equality. It is noticeable that many of the larger Departments have very few allowances compared with the Department of Education and Skills. My general question is how did the Department end up having a list of 300 or 400 allowances? I ask the witnesses to explain the historical origins of the processes involved in the Department with regard to the introduction of a very intricate and piecemeal system of allowances dating back to the foundation of the State.