Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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2. To ask the Taoiseach the changes he plans to implement in his Department. [29819/17]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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3. To ask the Taoiseach the number of advisers he will employ; the number employed to date in 2017; and the responsibilities of each. [29823/17]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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4. To ask the Taoiseach the number of Ministers of State assigned to his Department; the responsibilities of each; the payments they will receive; and the staff they have been assigned or allowed recruit. [29824/17]

Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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5. To ask the Taoiseach the number of advisers he plans to appoint; and the areas in which they will be working. [29835/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 2 to 5, inclusive, together.

Having appointed Ministers and Ministers of State to their various portfolios across Government, I will reflect on how my Department can best support the important work ahead. I will continue to meet officials in the Department and decide over the coming weeks what changes might be required.

Four Ministers of State hold portfolios in my Department: Deputy Joe McHugh is Government Chief Whip; Deputy Helen McEntee has responsibility for european affairs; Deputy Paul Kehoe has responsibility for defence; and Deputy Pat Breen has responsibility for data protection. The payments these Ministers of State will receive are sanctioned by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and their staffing entitlements are those set out in that Department's instructions on ministerial appointments for the 32nd Dáil.

I am also considering the advisory supports that I might need in my role as Taoiseach and Head of Government. While I have not as yet finalised the make-up of my team, I intend to recruit a number of special advisers, including a chief of staff. All such appointments will be subject to Government approval.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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While I am aware that he ran out of time, he did not answer Deputy Gino Kenny's question regarding Charlotte Connolly. Given the life-threatening nature of her condition, she and her family deserve a response from the Government.

In terms of changes in the Department of the Taoiseach and sub-committees that will be established, under the previous Taoiseach there was no education sub-committee. Will the Taoiseach have an education sub-committee? I ask that he does so for many reasons which I will not enumerate. I ask that he consider as a matter of urgency the issue of school lands being sold off by religious orders and the consequent degradation of schools' facilities and amenities. On several occasions I have raised the case of Clonkeen College, a non-fee paying school in my constituency that is to have effectively all of its playing pitches sold to developers, which is a massive blow to the school. There are still hopes that the Government will intervene and prevent that from happening by securing those facilities and amenities. This issue does not solely concern a school in my area as there is a vast number of playing fields that are being sold or will potentially be sold. Ironically, in some cases that is being done to finance a redress scheme, which means that, as a consequence of one group of people being abused, the facilities of another group are now being attacked. Will the Department of the Taoiseach examine this matter and consider securing these school lands into State ownership?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton, answered this question yesterday in a very straightforward way. He said that the Department of Education and Skills acquires lands as it sees fit. It has a capital budget which it can use to buy land and build schools and it has to prioritise how it spends that money.

On the matter raised earlier by Deputy Gino Kenny, I am always loath to answer queries about individual cases because I am not a decision maker on any individual case in the health service or beyond. I have read a little about the case in newspapers and I understand that a request has been made to use the drug for an unlicensed purpose as an experiment or trial. The Government would never intervene in order to get a person onto a trial. It is for doctors to set up a trial to use a drug for an experimental purpose and the pharmaceutical company would then generally provide the medicine at no cost if it is to be used as part of a clinical trial.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I note from media reports that Dr. Patrick Geoghegan, a noted historian, has joined the Taoiseach's team.

His influence is self-evident from all of the references to history in recent times, which is to be welcomed. I would like to get an idea of the Taoiseach's thinking. It is clear that he has not recruited everybody he requires as of yet, but what are the component parts of the advisory team that he is seeking to recruit? I take it that he will seek to recruit an economic adviser. His predecessor had quite an influential economic adviser. The norm is that the Taoiseach would have oversight of the economic performance of each Department and I would be interested to know the totality of the support team that he envisages having around him.

On the issue of the Minsters of State, we are now in the unprecedented position of having four Ministers of State with the right to attend at Cabinet. I raised the issue of payments to be made to those Ministers of State. I understand that a statutory instrument will be required to pay any additional allowance over the basic Minister of State rate. Is it the intention of the Taoiseach or the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to bring such an instrument to the House or are the four Ministers of State simply to be paid the normal Minister of State rate? If there is to be a statutory instrument, is it envisaged that the Taoiseach will select two of the four Ministers of State in order to comply with the law?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I have not figured out the composition of my advisory team yet. I want to have a working understanding of my new role before I form a full working team and I also want to have a better understanding of what good expertise exists in the Department already and which I will avail of fully. Where there are gaps I will try to fill those with my advisory team. I will of course endeavour to ensure that the total cost of my team is no greater than that of my forebear and much less than that of Taoisigh from previous Administrations.

I have Deputy Howlin's letter on the matter of payments to Ministers of State at Cabinet. The issue is being examined at present and we should understand within a few weeks exactly what is legal and what is not. The law will of course be complied with. I do not have any plans to bring forward a statutory instrument to provide any additional payments.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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There was considerable commentary on the Taoiseach's choices for Ministers of State, particularly with regard to gross gender imbalance. In the media coverage the Taoiseach or someone from his camp was reported as saying that the advisers appointed would make up for this gender imbalance. Not alone that, it seemed to be a formula for the lovely girls entering the fray. Can the Taoiseach clear that up? The manner in which this was reported in the press was quite odd.

Who advises the Taoiseach most directly on Brexit? What is the capacity around him on that issue? He has taken a very particular whole-of-Government approach and has vested in the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney and the Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, in particular responsibility on these issues, but what capacity does the Taoiseach, as Head of Government, have available?

Who advises the Taoiseach on the North and issues such as the Good Friday Agreement and the propositions around a White Paper on reunification that have emerged in the course of the Fine Gael leadership contest? What is the advisory capacity there?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I cannot clear up that particular issue because I am not sure what it refers to. It may refer to a story I saw in the Sunday Mail, which certainly was not quoting me and did not claim to quote me. It claimed to quote some anonymous source, and as is always the case from things I see from anonymous sources in the newspapers, I may have my suspicions as to who said it. These things are rarely said in one's interests. I do not know who it was. I cannot clarify it because it is something that I did not say and is attributed to nobody.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Taoiseach might clarify that it is not his thinking.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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It is absolutely not my thinking. On the issue of gender balance within my ministerial team, as the Deputy knows we select our Ministers from Parliament. It is different in other countries, where Ministers may be selected from outside Parliament. Of the 12 female Deputies who support this Government, seven are Ministers, including the Tánaiste and five women who sit at the Cabinet table, and two are committee chairs. Nine of the 12 hold promotional paid positions within the Government. I would like that figure to be much higher because I believe that diversity leads to better decision making but the best way that I can do that is to increase the number of female Deputies who support the Government. If I could increase the number of female Deputies supporting the Government from 12 to 24, I could have 14 or 18 female Ministers, and that is much closer to the position that I would like to be in. What I would like, of course, is total gender equality, but even if I appointed all female Deputies to ministerial office, including those only elected last year, it would still only amount to one third. The real problem we have in this House is that there are not enough female Deputies. My party has more female Deputies than any other party but it is still far fewer that we should have.

In anticipation that this question might come up, I had a look at the gender composition of the Sinn Féin Front Bench, which has four female members from 18 positions. That is slightly worse than what we have around the Cabinet table, in case the Deputy had not noticed.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The most basic fact on which no one is clear is exactly what the situation is on the Department's role in staffing for the Brexit process. While the position of the second Secretary General and the head of the international division is clear, very little else is. The overall European co-ordination role was returned to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade last year and a fortnight ago, the Taoiseach placed the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, in charge of co-ordinating the Government's Brexit response, which was a significant change from his predecessor's position, who placed the Department of the Taoiseach in the lead role in this co-ordination. Can the Taoiseach explain the exact responsibilities of the two Departments on Brexit, and when the long-delayed studies on Brexit staffing needs will be finalised and published?

In the Taoiseach's six years in government, no one has ever doubted the ability of his staff to promote him in the media. What is less obvious is an engagement with the hard substance of policy. It was interesting to hear that the Taoiseach has not yet identified what advisers he will be selecting. Is he in a position to outline the policy-related roles he will assign to advisers or where he might take on advice?

Following on from Deputy Howlin's question on the Ministers of State, is the Taoiseach in a position to say which two Ministers of State will get the allowance and which two will not? Why will it take three or four weeks to get legal clarity on this? Surely this is a straightforward issue one way or the other. Could the Taoiseach indicate to us what advices he has received on this issue already?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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On the issue of Brexit, as Taoiseach I will be attending the European Council. The treaties and the rules are clear as to who can attend the European Council and who cannot. I will be attending the European Council and dealing with European affairs and Brexit at that level, that is, at the level of Prime Minister, the Commission and the Council. I am ably supported by a team lead by Mr. John Callinan, the second Secretary General, who is also the sherpa in that regard. The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, will report to me, but aside from that fact he will co-ordinate the more general response to Brexit. That is the work done by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade - alongside the Minister of State, Deputy McEntee - namely, attending GAC engagements with other foreign ministers but also pulling together the responses from different Departments, for example the response of Deputy Fitzgerald's Department and the response from the Department of Justice and Equality that may be required to deal with visas and other matters. All of that will be done under the leadership of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, but he will of course report to me as Taoiseach. It will be my responsibility to attend the European Council and to engage with Heads of State and Government and the Presidents of the European institutions.

I have not assigned policy roles to different advisers yet and I am still trying to figure out what the best way is to employ the people that I have working around me. The previous Taoiseach had two assigned to policy roles, one of which pertained to economics.

The position was not subsequently refilled and there were a number on press and other matters. I need to figure that out.

In terms of policy substance, over the past six years there have been 20 Bills brought from initiation to full enactment, which is a reasonably good record for legislation produced in three Departments in that time. On the allowances, we are trying to work out what the law provides for and whether the Chief Whip's allowance can be treated separately from the allowances paid to the other Ministers of State. I hope to get solid legal advice on that within a couple of weeks.