Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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234. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the number of parliamentary questions his Department has processed in the past three years to date; the number of questions answered directly; the number of questions referred to bodies or agencies under the aegis of his Department for direct reply; the number of staff who are assigned to his parliamentary questions section; and if non-departmental staff, advisers and-or public affairs and relations companies have composed parliamentary question replies or had an act or hand in forming parliamentary question replies in the timeframe specified. [52235/18]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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The number of Parliamentary Questions processed by my Department in the period 2016-2018 is set out in the table below. The numbers for 2018 are to the end of November.

The processing of Parliamentary Questions is co-ordinated through the Secretary General's Office, which has a team of two staff. Replies to Parliamentary Questions are prepared at individual Unit level across the Department, with input where appropriate from my advisers.

There are four bodies under the aegis of my Department, the Child and Family Agency, the Adoption Authority, the Ombudsman for Children's Office and the Oberstown Children Detention School Campus. The number of referrals to agencies for direct reply is not routinely recorded. In general the practice is that where questions are purely of an operational nature they are referred directly to the agency for reply. The introduction of the ePQ system, scheduled for early 2019 as part of the wider Build to Share civil service wide initiative, will allow for the reporting of such referrals.