Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

I will answer those questions in reverse order if that is agreeable to the Deputy. Special advisers are responsible to me to give me outside independent advice. They are not to supplement the advice I get from civil servants, they are to help me come forward with alternative views or perspectives. They are not a substitute for the Minister. It is not the case that it is appropriate that special advisers either clear parliamentary questions or clear "what the Minister should or should not do". The Minister must make those decisions. The buck rests with the Minister, not with the special advisers.

My special advisers are accountable to me and they work very well, as they did in my previous Department, and, hopefully, as they will in this one, with the civil servants. They work in a team-like way. They are not part of the management of the Department, they do not go to the management meetings in the Department. Mr. Travers makes recommendations in that regard. Different Ministers have different perspectives. I do not attend management meetings, nor did I do so in the previous Department. I believe that is the role of the management in the Department, although we have policy meetings with officials and so on.

On the question of more resources, the Department of Health and Children is constantly getting more resources. I said yesterday that the new role for the Department will be a policy legislative standards role and the Health Service Executive will have the delivery accountability function of the health services. In that new role we must organise resources and we need to put resources into different areas. By more resources I mean we need to beef up certain aspects of the Department to give it more strength in certain key areas where it has huge responsibilities, particularly in respect of legislation. Currently, we are working on several Bills in the Department in respect of medical practitioners, nurses, other health care professionals, pharmacy legislation, health information and so on. There are so many areas and it is a mammoth, onerous task for a Department. In our new role I want to put more resources into that area. It is about moving resources around and it may be about additionality as well.

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