Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is appropriate for consideration to be given to the reallocation of responsibility for certain areas for which the Department of Justice and Equality is now responsible. This should not be done to reduce the workload - that is the wrong expression - but to ensure all areas within the Department are given thorough and full consideration. I note what the Minister said about his "active and constructive" Ministers of State. I will not make any comment on that other than to say that the Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, does a great deal of work when he comes before the Joint Committee on Justice and Equality. We need to give full consideration to where we should go from here. I suggest that the Minister should attend a meeting of the joint committee to hear the opinions of members on whether some issues within the jurisdiction of the Department could be moved to other Departments. The Minister said that much of his time is spent dealing with the contents of the programme for Government. I am afraid Fine Gael is partly responsible for that because of its decision to give in so significantly to the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, who wrote a large part of the justice section of the programme for Government. The Minister, Deputy Flanagan, is a victim of that now. He has to implement the Ross agenda, but he should not become a prisoner of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. He should ensure that he is allowed to introduce his own policy proposals in areas covered by the Department of Justice and Equality.

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