Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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224. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the costs to his Department to process and respond to a priority, an oral and a written parliamentary question. [16589/14]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The cost of answering a Parliamentary Question and the time taken to answer all questions vary considerably according to the level of information requested.

Staff are not assigned full time to deal with Parliamentary Questions, they are dealt with, as the need arises, by officials in the sections dealing with the particular issue(s) raised in Parliamentary Questions. Time spent on an individual answer depends on the complexity of the issue raised and whether priority, oral or written. In 2013 my Department responded to 3,764 Parliamentary Questions and to date in 2014 has responded to 1,115 Parliamentary Questions. A considerable amount of time is spent answering Parliamentary Questions however it is not possible to quantify the costs involved.