Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

During last week's Taoiseach's Questions, the Taoiseach said he was still looking around the Taoiseach's Department in terms of policy advisers and so on and that he would take his time to decide how to change things there, and the same was suggested regarding Cabinet committees. How long does he believe that process will take in terms of the Cabinet committees and the restructuring of the Department?

As the Taoiseach said, the current statement of strategy was published in February. It is interesting that it promised a full human resource analysis by the end of the following month. Four months on, can the Taoiseach tell us if this has been done and what actions, if any, have been implemented to make sure that there is enough staffing in critical roles within his Department? The outgoing strategy promised a full human resource analysis. It also lists six priority areas for the Department's work. Surprisingly one of them is not work concerning Northern Ireland. It is arguable, and we have argued that over the past six years, that the disengagement ofthe Taoiseach, and his predecessor and Ministers, from Northern Ireland has been extremely damaging to the process. Certainly there have been concerns as to whether to the Taoiseach's office has the capacity any more to take the leadership role which previous taoisigh took in regard to the Good Friday Agreement. There was a point, for example, where the Northern division was a separate division in the Taoiseach's Department, it is now a section of a larger division which is dominated by Brexit and European Union matters. In terms of the new strategy, will the Taoiseach consider restoring the status and priority given to Northern Ireland in his Department? What measures does he propose to take to reverse the drift of recent years? It seems the template that is the Good Friday Agreement must remain the fundamental evolutionary framework for the three sets of relationship between Britain and Ireland, the North and the South and within both communities. I think there is an attempt by a number of forces and groups, by pushing other agendas, to undermine the essence of the Good Friday Agreement, which is the template to have proper parity of esteem between both communities in the North and the traditions and various issues that relate to those traditions.

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