Charlie O'Connor (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Question 720: To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the average cost to his Department of answering a parliamentary question. [3857/08]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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Serving the needs of this House and the democratic process is an essential everyday part of the work of staff in the Department. Work related to Parliamentary Questions is an important element of this process built into the business plans of individual divisions of the Department. In addition, input into individual questions varies depending on the complexity of the issue raised and the level of expertise required to service it. Because it is part of the ongoing workload of civil servants and, because staff resources are not exclusively deployed to deal with questions, it is not possible to separate out the cost of answering Parliamentary Questions from overall administration costs.