Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I do not agree with that contention because we have established Ministers of State with cross-cutting responsibilities in these areas. There has also been much discussion of these issues at full Cabinet meetings. The suggestion that social inclusion matters do not arise unless they are raised at Cabinet committee level is not the issue. The full Cabinet has been dealing with many of these issues in recent times. The cross-cutting responsibilities of Ministers of State on integration, the elderly and so on have helped the co-ordinating mechanism.

The success of the Office of the Minister for Children has meant that we have extended that idea into other areas which deal with social inclusion. When the offices of the different Ministers of State pull together, the situation is far better than what happened in the past, when individual Departments were pulled together through the Cabinet sub-committee system. That work is ongoing and the fact that we have set it up in this way does not mean it has not been given priority. On the contrary, it has been given high priority.

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