Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

The Government was formed last June and by December every Department was supposed to have agreed a strategy statement. I was appalled to find that, as of now, ten of the 15 Departments have produced no strategy statement. That is supposed to be the intent for the Dáil against which we evaluate what Ministers are doing. No strategy statements have been agreed by the Department of Education and Science, the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, the Department of Transport, the Department of Health and Children, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht and Affairs and the Department of the Taoiseach. Will the Tánaiste end this laxity by Government Ministers who do not take seriously their obligations to produce these documents, which are supposed to guide the House in respect of what is planned? Perhaps the change in resource availability because of the decline in tax expectations has caused him, as Minister for Finance, to stall strategy statements. The resources will not be there to deliver what Ministers were hoping to achieve. The House is entitled to know what is happening to strategy statements, which are supposed to be at the core of Government for the next number of years, and why they are not being produced. Can we expect this sort of indulgence by Ministers in future?

See this speech in context