Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

I welcome the Minister's statement. If we were to examine the matter of exploration more seriously, we would search for a vehicle other than NORA, but the only option open to the Opposition benches is to try to develop that idea through this Bill.

Regarding the company's strategy statement, there was an example yesterday of a report lying in the Oireachtas Library for 21 days and we were not sure that it was there. Another spectacular example involved statutory instruments devolving a chunk of the Minister's Department, including a part that was not meant to be taken. The House had not sanctioned the Minister's transferral of small harbours to the Department of Transport.

That situation owed to our tortuous problems with the structure of the Department from day one, namely, it is two and a half Departments in a bag and everything is trying to get out to do important national jobs. Other Departments administer a single company or State body, such as the Department of Defence. For example, many people have no earthly clue about what the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Ó Cuív, does in his so-called Craggy Island Department.

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