Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

However, it never shows what is subsumed within a given Department's overall budgetary provision. Does the Taoiseach accept that there is not a realisation of the real cost and that this must be an incentive to address it? We need transparency and the facts in respect of the true cost of Ministers of State. There must be appointments based on specific need and area of prioritisation, rather than as a means of appeasing the very large parliamentary bloc of the Fianna Fáil Party which, in election after election in the past 12 years, has appointed more Ministers of State than at any given time previously in the history of the jurisdiction.

See this speech in context