Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

The programme for Government includes a commitment to introduce a new procedure for answering oral questions by State agencies. The chief executive of every State funded agency will be required to attend the relevant Oireachtas committee on a regular basis to answer oral parliamentary questions that can be submitted by any member. There will also be a requirement that State agencies answer written questions within a specified number of Dáil sitting days.

Until these new procedures are designed and implemented, I have adopted a transitional arrangement for questions on issues which are the responsibility of agencies under the aegis of my Department. Rather than seeking to have these questions disallowed, as was previously the case, I have been referring the questions to the relevant agencies for direct reply, and have been asking the Deputies concerned to revert to my office if a reply has not been received within ten days. The House will appreciate that this approach lends itself well to written questions. However, our procedures for oral questions allow for supplementary questioning and this is clearly not appropriate when the Minister is not responsible for the issue concerned. I suggest therefore that Deputies put such questions down for written reply only, as I clearly cannot deal with them in any detail in oral replies.

The matters raised are operational ones for Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland. I have referred the Deputy's question to the agencies for direct reply and I ask him to advise my private office if he does not receive a reply within ten working days.

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