Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I asked six of the questions in this block of ten questions. Rather than spending too much time on this aspect, it is worth noting from the information the Taoiseach has supplied that his promise to slim down the Department of the Taoiseach radically has clearly been abandoned and the same goes for his nine-year promise to get rid of what he used to call the propaganda units in the Government Information Service. This is very similar to the "not another red cent"-type promises he made, which were only designed to last as long as the election itself. As the Taoiseach knows, he had very strong stuff to say about www.merrionstreet.ie and the GIS but he very quickly and warmly embraced them and continues to endorse their output and work.

The other key issue the Taoiseach alluded to, and it is the biggest change that has occurred, is the transfer of the European division from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to his own Department, with over 80 staff. I questioned this at the time in terms of coherence and integration with the work of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade itself. The logic of that decision has never been clear because, even up to that period, the co-ordination of European policy was very effective and was acknowledged as such.

The core network we rely upon in our relations with our European partners remains within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. I am sure the Taoiseach is aware the Tánaiste has reinstated a European affairs section in Iveagh House, led by an assistant secretary. Will the Taoiseach explain how he considers it an improvement to have two sections in two different Departments responsible for co-ordinating European affairs? In many ways this was an inevitable consequence of his decision to take the entire entity of European affairs to the Department of the Taoiseach. In addition, if questions are asked of the Taoiseach on the North or on European affairs, why are some of them automatically referred to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade?

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