Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I do not want to delay the House unnecessarily but this is not a standard provision in terms of applying to the Taoiseach. We are dealing with a different position in this Bill. The Taoiseach is the boss. He or she is the one who appoints and who can, without any reason, sack the Minister for Finance. There is the absolute right of a Taoiseach to seek a Minister's resignation. The Taoiseach does not have to give a reason and many a Minister or ex-Ministers has said that.

What happened here is that a standard clause, which goes into all legislation dealing with expenditure, names the Taoiseach whereas normally the Minister would be named. It is a mistake but I will not start a row about it. I simply invite the Minister of State to ask whether the Attorney General's office approved this phrase or whether it was slipped through by a junior official in that Department without thinking about it because I do not believe it has any validity in law.