Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

I return to the issue of delegation orders. We are giving authority to the Government to appoint three additional Ministers of State. Some 17 Ministers of State have a legal basis for their appointments. There has been some discussion as to whether the appointments are cosmetic or real, politically driven or policy driven. The point can be argued back and forth but the acid test is whether the individual has authority underpinned by a delegation order. If there are no delegation orders they have no legal authority to carry out functions in the Department without the consent and assent of a Minister. On the other hand, if they are appointed to a specific role and have delegation orders they have legal authority to carry out specific functions even though the Minister has overall responsibility for policy. This is a key issue.

For instance, if Deputy Hoctor with her new responsibility for the elderly does not have a delegation order, her writ will not run unless it coincides totally with the senior Minister who is a member of a different party. The responsibilities of a number of Ministers of State are intended to cross Departments. The Minister of State with responsibility for children is considered a senior position with the officeholder, Deputy Brendan Smith, being allowed to attend Cabinet meetings but not having voting rights there. The ludicrous situation could arise whereby he would have a delegation order in respect of his role in the Department of Health and Children but he might not have delegation orders in respect of his roles in the Departments of Education and Science or Justice, Equality and Law Reform. It is crucial this matter is addressed. If these positions are real, policy-driven ones and they are deemed by the Government to be necessary from a policy point of view to implement part of the programme for Government, then the officeholders should be given the legal authority to do the job. If it is a kind of "how's your father" arrangement with the senior Minister and if it hinges on the relationship between the senior Minister and the junior Minister, the precedents are not great.

One could consult the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, about her relationship with her senior Minister in her first appointment as junior Minister with responsibility for issues close to the heart of her new partners in Government, namely, the Environmental Protection Agency among other issues. Her senior Minister was the former Minister, Mr. Flynn, from Mayo. Everything works while everybody is friendly and until there is a difference of opinion. When that happens, in the absence of a delegation order, only one voice prevails, the voice of the Cabinet Minister.

Many of us in the House would in all sincerity have difficulty in naming the Ministers of State who recently went out of office. We would have difficulty in naming the names and nominating their portfolios. Due to the fact that they did not have delegation orders, the arrangement was informal. They only had the trappings of office. I do not criticise that; trappings go with office, but the Ministers of State did not have the statutory authority to do the job they were supposed to do.

What I want to establish in this debate is whether it will be different this time. Are titles such as "Minister for the elderly" or "Minister for children" or whatever is the title for the Minister of State with responsibility for tackling the drugs issue, driven by PR and a desire to indicate that serious action will be taken in particular areas simply because the titles are appropriate, or do they signify a real intention to give the people who have been promoted and who have ability, the authority to carry out the job?

When he is replying, perhaps the Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern, will inform us about the 17 Ministers of State who have already been appropriately appointed under existing legislation, how many of their functions have been designated by order by their senior Minister and of the three new Ministers of State who are being appointed, whether it is the intention that their functions would also be designated by a delegation order?

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