Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I have four questions in this group on the same broad topic but I seek some specific points of information. I welcome the appointment of Geraldine Byrne-Nason as second Secretary General, who is a high calibre person, and I wish her well in her appointment. On 8 April, the Government briefed the media that the current Secretary General had been asked to step down a few months earlier because of what was termed, with typical understatement, a sweeping reform of the top of the Civil Service. On 22 June, it was announced that he had been asked to remain for a number of months. It was an early example of an announcement that was overspun and underdelivered. Can the Taoiseach accept that his staff were wrong in the way they briefed about the Secretary General's departure and that this cavalier approach has rebounded on them? In March, the second Secretary General post was supposed to have been filled by someone outside the system. Has the plan about appointing people from outside the system been completely abandoned?

See this speech in context