Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

My colleague, Deputy Ciarán Lynch, tabled a parliamentary question to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to establish the number of prosecutions that have been taken in cases of suspected television licence evasion, and the number of convictions and penalties applied. Deputy Shortall tabled a question about the number of prosecutions taken by the Garda Síochána in respect of various motoring offences. I have received a letter from you, a Cheann Comhairle, claiming that the Minister has no official responsibility to Dáil Éireann for this matter and that Deputy Ciarán Lynch should go to the Courts Service. In the case of Deputy Shortall, I was told that the Minister has no responsibility and that she should go to the Central Statistics Office. It is an extraordinary situation that did not obtain until this Dáil. We are now being told that one cannot table a question to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform about the number of prosecutions in respect of different areas of the law. We are also told that we must approach the Courts Service or the CSO to establish that. We are rapidly reaching the situation where Ministers tell the House they have no responsibility so we should go to the HSE, NRA, CSO or the Courts Service. Either Ministers are redundant or the Opposition is redundant in terms of trying to obtain information because we must go from one quango to another. We will not be able to ask the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, how we are getting on with integration, which we are all watching carefully. Will the Taoiseach agree to restore the normal service in this regard when we resume in September?

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