Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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188. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of occasions in each of the years from 2011 to 2016 to date in which the powers vested in him or any other Minister in his Department were exercised, without any express act of delegation, by departmental officials of certain seniority and responsibility, as per the Carltona doctrine. [17476/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Carltona doctrine (or Carltona principle) expresses the concept that the acts of departmental officials are synonymous with the actions of the Minister with responsibility for that Government department. It recognises the reality that because Ministers have so many functions and duties they cannot be expected to carry them out themselves. These functions and duties are normally exercised by a Minister’s officials. Constitutionally the decision of the official is the decision of the Minister.

Due to the nature of the Carltona doctrine and, especially, the scale of my Department’s remit it is not feasible to provide the numerical information requested.