Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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198. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade 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. [17471/16]

Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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The Public Service Management Act 1997 seeks to secure an appropriate devolution of authority and responsibility within Government departments from Ministers to their officials. The Act provides a statutory framework for the assignment of specific functions for which the Secretary General is responsible to appropriate officers or appropriate grades of officers within departments, with accountability flowing to the Secretary General for the performance of those functions. The Act reaffirmed that, notwithstanding any assignment (i.e. delegation) of functions of civil servants under the Act, a Minister of the Government is in charge of his or her Department and is responsible for the administration of that Department as provided for in the Constitution and the Ministers and Secretaries Act, confirming the primacy of the principle of ministerial responsibility.

This assignment for my Department is set out in our Corporate Governance Framework, which is available on the Department’s website at . Information as to the assignment of responsibility within the Department is also available at www.whodoeswhat.gov.ie.

Given their variety and number, statistical information is not maintained in respect of each occasion on which powers vested in me are exercised by my officials pursuant to the Carltona Doctrine.