Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour)
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Question 86: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the number of public petitions that have been submitted to him in the past four years, in tabular form; the nature of the petition campaign; the date on which the petition was submitted; the number of signatories on each petition; the action undertaken by him following consideration of the submission; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28424/11]

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Petitions addressed to me or to my Department are received from time to time. There is no prescribed format for such a petition and they have no particular status. They may range in scale from a few dozen signatures to several thousand or more. They may come from particular interest groups, from concerned individuals and from Ireland or from overseas. Such petitions are generally related to topical foreign policy issues and they are treated as an input to policy-making. As such, they are directed to the relevant section in my Department dealing with the topic in question, where they are given consideration. There is no central registry of such petitions in my Department and it is not therefore possible to provide the statistical information requested by the Deputy.