asked the Minister for the Public Service if he will consider investigating the possibility of the provision of temporary employment for school-leavers in Government Departments by the expansion of activity in these Departments until such time as the present unemployment crisis ends.

The civil service with the total number of authorised posts exceeding 50,000 provides a wide range of employment opportunities for school leavers at all levels from primary to university. The long established principle is that new posts are created in the public service to meet the work need at any particular time. The scope for a temporary expansion of activities to absorb an appreciable number of additional staff over and above normal requirements is limited.

The Deputy may take it that the Government have been examining what suitable opportunities can be availed of to increase employment within the constraints imposed by budgetary considerations and the need to maintain an efficient public service.

Have the Government given any particular consideration to the problem that will arise this summer and the lack of opportunities in the country for school leavers at all levels? Did the meeting of the Government this week, to consider the unemployment situation, give any consideration to that important concern in our community?

I am not a member of the Government. As the Deputy may well understand, Parliamentary Secretaries are not members of the Government but at present I have not heard what the Cabinet have said about this matter.

Would the Parliamentary Secretary convey to the Minister for Finance that there is grave concern in the community about the lack of action by the Government to provide opportunities for young people, particularly in the present unemployment situation and that apparently there are no opportunities for young school leavers this year? Would the Parliamentary Secretary, with a full knowledge of the situation, regard this as something he should put before his Minister as a matter of urgent concern?

This is a very long question.

I will convey the Deputy's suggestions to the Minister when he returns from abroad.

Question No. 19.

Could I ask the Parliamentary Secretary——

The Chair very much wishes when he calls the next question that Members would desist from asking further supplementaries and indeed that Ministers would respond in answering questions called.

I would just like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary a very short supplementary. Is he aware that the four taxation Bills going through the House now——

Surely this is not relevant?

——are having the effect of taking investment money out of the country and are therefore creating a situation where unemployment will be increased?

This is quite irrelevant.

Sin ceist eile.

It is all wrapped up in the same thing. It is only a big bluff.

There are bluffs and bluffs.