Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

Legislation may be required if the structure of Departments is to be changed. In any event, these changes will require some teasing out by the Members of the House. I refer to issues like the functioning of Departments, the division of various responsibilities, the appropriateness of linking a particular policy area with another area, the cost of changing Departments and the manner in which such changes might sit with the Government's previous policy on decentralisation. It will not be possible to address all such issues in the length of time that is proposed. Under an alternative proposal made by the Labour Party Whip, Deputy Stagg, the business of the House would continue until 9 p.m. - we do not particularly object to the proposal to start considering these matters now - and we would have a minimum of six hours for the debate. In the original business that was notified to us, we were told the vote on the composition of the Cabinet would take place at 7 p.m. When the media managers got hold of that proposal, the relevant time was changed to 6 p.m. because they felt it might make a nice picture for television to have the newly appointed Ministers driving to Áras an Uachtaráin at 6 p.m. to receive their seals of office.

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