John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 206: To ask the Minister for Finance his plans to address the non-answering of parliamentary questions submitted to several Departments; if his attention has been drawn to the fact that staff in these Departments will not take calls on the Houses of the Oireachtas lines provided to help access information. [12444/10]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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As I said in my reply to Parliamentary Question No. 10848/10 of 3 March 2010, the current work to rule and other actions, which are impacting on processing Parliamentary Questions and providing information to public representatives are part of a programme of industrial action undertaken by public service unions across the public sector. The industrial action is in response to the pay reductions imposed by the Government on public servants with effect from 1 January last as part of the Government's budgetary strategy to bring the public finances under control.

In order to address issues raised by the programme of industrial action in the public sector, my Department has established a co-ordination group of all public service sectors affected to monitor and review service delivery and other issues arising from the industrial action. Any industrial action, whatever form it takes, is regrettable, in particular if it has any impact on service delivery to the public. Public Service management are doing what they can to minimise any such impact. As the Deputy will know discussion are currently taking place between the Government and the Public Service Unions with a view to achieving the necessary transformation to the public service into the future.