Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was asked about the Working Group of Committee Chairmen. I have met that group once in the past year, not twice, but I would be happy to meet them again.

All Ministers of State have assigned responsibilities. They do not all have a delegation order, however, as delegation orders only apply if statutory functions are being transferred to Ministers and Minister of State. That would be the case for approximately half of them.

I fully acknowledge that there are not enough women in ministerial roles in this Government. However, only 12 female Deputies support the Government. Of those 12, seven are Ministers, so more than half the female Deputies who support the Government are in ministerial roles. Clearly that demonstrates the problem. We do not have enough female Deputies. With my Fine Gael leader hat on, I am trying to ensure that we have as many new female Deputies elected to the Dáil as soon as possible. Fine Gael has more female Deputies than any other party. I want us to have far more than any other party after the next election, whenever it comes. In recent days we have selected or added a number of female candidates and there are more to come. We are going to put a major effort behind getting them elected to increase the pool of female Deputies so that many more can hold international office.

I note that Deputy Burton was a party leader herself and was in a position to appoint six Ministers to Cabinet, but only appointed one other woman aside from herself. I am sorry that opportunity was not used.

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