Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Independent)
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77. To ask the Minister for Defence if he will provide in tabular form, the dates of meetings of his Department's management advisory council in 2011, 2012, 2013 and to date in 2014; the civil servants present at each of these meetings; if he or his Department's Minister of State was present at each of these meetings; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45474/14]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Secretary General is responsible for the management of my Department and is supported in this role by the Management Advisory Committee (MAC). The current Committee is made up of Mr Maurice Quinn, Secretary General, Mr Des Dowling Assistant Secretary, Mr Ciaran Murphy, Assistant Secretary and Mr Brian Spain, Director. From time to time, officials of the Department attend MAC meetings to brief the Committee on particular issues. An official also attends the meetings to provide secretarial support. During the period 2011 – 2014, the Committee has met on a weekly basis other than in exceptional circumstance, when due to other diary commitments, a meeting had to be deferred. The Committee does not meet in the month of August. I attend the meetings periodically as does the Minister of State. I am also in daily contact with individual MAC members on a range of issues. The dates of the meetings and the names of Committee members that attended are set out below.