Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister, Deputy Calleary. His is an incredibly important portfolio. I wish him well. I know these are not the circumstances in which he would have wished for this to happen and that he will be thinking of Deputy Cowen and his family from that point of view.

There was a lot of attention on the failure to allocate a Minister for the west, but there is no such thing as a Minister for the west. I accept there is a region that feels very disenfranchised. The key issue is that Ministers are for all the country; it is the portfolio that matters. This will nonetheless be seen as a gain in the west but at an expense of the midlands. Deputy Fleming, with whom I served on the Committee of Public Accounts, is being appointed as Minister for State, but there is no doubt but that that will be the feeling. There is something wrong with our politics when that is how ministerial appointments are perceived. A Minister cannot be a Minister for a region or an individual constituency. We have heard very concerning things from that point of view in recent weeks. It is essential, however, that Government functions in such a way that Ministers are for all the country. This is one of the areas on which we need to hold this Government to account. There is evidence from previous Administrations that whichever Deputy is in a particular position can matter hugely to his or her individual constituency. However, we need to move towards objective resource allocation so we do not end up with postcode lotteries in the provision of public services and infrastructure, and that resources are fairly allocated and based on need, not the location of a particular Minister. We would all gain from such an approach.

I am all in favour of expertise being available to Ministers, but I think the number of advisers and the actual expertise being brought in will become sources of serious concern because in some cases it is quite difficult to see exactly what that expertise is, other than media management. I think there will be close scrutiny of that.

The Taoiseach has talked about how important the role of Chief Whip is and has made a big issue of that. I agree with him: it is a very important position. Three weeks on, however, there are justifiable questions about this. I wish Deputy Chambers well in his new role. Government has a job to do, but so has the Opposition. Within the framework document the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste produced, the role of the Opposition was acknowledged. I am quite concerned about the majoritarianism we are seeing come to pass in respect of the Dáil reform committee and the curtailment of some voices in the Opposition. We should be very concerned about that. It is not on for Members of this Parliament not to be able to sit on committees and hold the Government to account. That cannot be the way in which this proceeds.

I hope there will be a rethink of the approach that has been forthcoming from some quarters. These are important roles and, again, I wish the Ministers, Deputies Calleary, Fleming and Chambers, well.

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