Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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287. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence 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 Department officials of certain seniority and responsibility, as per the Carltona doctrine. [17467/16]

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The Minsters and Secretaries Acts 1924 to 2013 provide that each Minister is the responsible head of the Department or Departments under his/her charge and “ ... shall be individually responsible to Dáil Éireann alone for the administration of the Department or Departments of which he is the head”.

The Minister of the Government having charge of a Department is responsible for the performance of functions that are assigned to the Department pursuant to any of those Acts. This responsibility, a central element of the structure of Government, ranges from significant political decision making on major policy issues to routine administrative responsibilities discharged by civil servants on the Minister’s behalf. 

It is long recognised that given the scale and complexity of a Department’s functions, a Minister cannot personally carry out the full range of functions assigned to his/her Department.  The Carltona principle formally established, as a point of law, that duties and powers vested in a Minister may be performed or exercised by senior officials in his or her department.  The principle provides that the powers vested in a Minister may be exercised, without any express act of delegation to departmental officials.  While officials may exercise powers in accordance with the Carltona principle, the Minister at all times retains ultimate responsibility and accountability.

In the context of the foregoing the Deputy will appreciate that given the volume of tasks undertaken by civil servants on behalf of the Minister, it is not possible to say the number of occasions in each of the years from 2011 to 2016 to date in which the powers vested in the Minister for Defence were exercised in line with the Carltona principle.