Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 6, inclusive, together.

The Government appointed Deputy Carey as Government Chief Whip and Minister of State at my Department and at the Department of Defence. Deputy Roche was appointed Minister of State at my Department and at the Department of Foreign Affairs with special responsibility for European affairs.

As Chief Whip, the Minister of State, Deputy Carey, is primarily responsible for the organisation of Government business in the Dáil and for the Government's programme for Dáil reform. He also oversees preparation of the Government's legislative programme. In addition, my statutory functions in relation to the Central Statistics Office have been delegated to him.

I have also assigned to him responsibility for the active citizenship initiative in my Department. His role will be to drive the initiative forward, oversee the implementation of the recommendations of the taskforce on active citizenship and, critically, promote the concept of active citizenship in all spheres of Irish life. He will be supported in this work by a steering group chaired by Ms Mary Davis.

In my Department, the Minister of State, Deputy Roche, chairs an interdepartmental co-ordinating committee on European Union affairs. The committee keeps under review, and works to ensure coherence on, the full range of issues on the EU agenda. The committee has a particular focus on the correct and timely transposition of EU legislation.

In addition to these duties, the Minister of State, Deputy Roche, represents Government at a wide range of EU and international meetings, most recently at an informal General Affairs and External Relations Council in Prague. The Minister of State plays a central role in consolidating and further developing Ireland's bilateral relations with EU member states. He also plays a key role in communicating the importance of the European Union to Ireland and thus fostering enhanced public understanding of EU issues.

I have no plans to change any of the functions or responsibilities in respect of the Minister of State, Deputy Carey or Minister of State, Deputy Roche. I have asked the Ministers of State and management of my Department to identify savings of the order of 10% in the running of their offices and to report to me within the week on how these savings will be achieved.

Further to the Government decision of 8 July 2008 to achieve a 3% saving in payroll costs and further efficiencies across the Department's administrative costs, a number of measures were put in place to ensure that these requirements were met. These included the non-filling of staff vacancies arising so as to attain a 3% reduction in salary costs by the end of 2009, the reduction or curtailing of certain costs across a range of administrative expenditure categories, including consultancy, advertising, PR, travel and telecommunications, efforts to achieve better value for money in the procurement of goods and services through improved procurement practices and the use of shared service facilities to reduce costs of payroll and financial processing systems. In total, savings amounting to in excess of €1 million were achieved by the end of last year through a combination of efficiencies across the administrative spend for my Department. Substantial savings were also achieved in the agencies which receive funding from my Department's Vote arising from the implementation of similar policies.

The 2009 Estimates allocation for my Department reflected the consequent level of savings on the Department's administrative costs of the continued implementation of these efficiency measures throughout 2009. Further to my recent announcement with regard to the achievement of additional general administrative reductions, the Revised Estimates allocation for my Department will be reduced by a further €508,000. Measures to effect these savings have been identified across a number of subheads within my Department's administrative budget through reductions for travel and subsistence, consultancy, telecommunications services, office equipment and office premises expenses.

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