Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I am somewhat disappointed that the Minister has not found that he has some ideas that he would like to implement on taking up office. I had understood he had been considerably interested in the post for some time. Will he, for example, consider a directive to provide that all appointments to State boards by the Minister would be presented to an Oireachtas committee so that it could have some input into them? May I suggest that he consider that it would be timely to have a medium-term strategy over the next four years bearing in mind that the existing programme for Government is based on tax revenue which will be cumulatively €30 billion off the target expected at the time it was made? Will he consider a policy directive to extend the Freedom of Information Act as requested by the Information Commissioner or to extend the powers of the Standards in Public Office Commission as it has requested? Has he considered that the request by the National Competitiveness Council that the Government should prepare a competitiveness action plan is one deemed worthy of support by the Minister for Finance and that we will have a direction that that will be done.

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