Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for providing that information. I welcome this initiative and hope that it can be rolled out further. The Minister might clarify a few points, but I understand the initiative to apply to Secretaries General, deputy secretaries, assistant secretaries and directors. According to a recent publication, there are 28 Secretaries General, 12 deputy secretaries and 209 assistant secretaries, a total of 249. Will the Minister provide us with the list of the 28 Secretaries General? I did not know there were so many, only that there were a few extra in one or two Departments.

What monitoring procedure will be put in place to determine whether this is a good system? That would be helpful. Will members of the wider public service undertake similar courses, for example, management at the HSE, which handles a large budget, local authorities, the Garda and so forth? There is no reason to wait until the civil servants finish. What are the Minister's plans in this regard?

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