asked the Taoiseach whether there are any committees in existence in his Department dealing with preparations for a general election; and if so, whether he will name in respect of each (i) its members and (ii) its advisers.

There are no such committees in my Department.

Is the report which appeared in the Sunday Independent of 22 March incorrect? According to it a so-called kitchen committee exists in the Department of the Taoiseach containing a businessman, an outside person——

The Deputy cannot make a statement on this.

——and two senior civil servants of assistant secretary rank? Is that report incorrect?

I can only repeat the answer I have given the Deputy. The question is: are there committees of a certain type in my Department? I am assuring the Deputy that no such committees exist in my Department.

Might I inquire whether the duties of these two civil servants mentioned in the report, whose names are perfectly well known by the House, are entirely non-political?

I do not think it could ever be suggested that a public servant working in the Office of a Minister or Taoiseach is entirely non-political.

Might I put the question a little differently then? Are they non-party political?

Of course, non-party political.

What, then, was one of them doing in Letterkenny——

Please, Deputy, I am calling Deputy Horgan.

——three days before the by-election? What was an assistant secretary in the Department of the Taoiseach doing in Letterkenny three days before the by-election, whom I saw and whom many others saw continuously during that period?

Please, Deputy Horgan.

An assistant secretary, not just an office boy.

Deputy, this is an abuse of Question Time.

It is an abuse of public servants who were never party political.

It is abuse of public servants who were never party political in this country before.

Deputy Horgan.

This is an interesting display of hypocrisy from a Government which not alone put a civil servant up for election but, when he was defeated at the polls, re-appointed him.

I am calling Deputy Horgan.

On the contrary, this is an entirely new case, a case of a career civil servant, not somebody brought in, and whose success in this Department will be held out as a model for others to emulate.

That is what we object to.

We never appointed a defeated Deputy to a position of a commissioner in the Land Commission.

Why did they appoint a High Court judge and a Supreme Court judge who had only 2,000 votes in the city of Dublin?

Has the Taoiseach encouraged or given permission to two of the civil servants in his Department, Brendan O'Donnell and Pádraic Óh Annracháin, to sit on a party committe connected with work for the general election? Does the Taoiseach not agree that the association of the names of these people with his party is damaging the entire civil service?

And them.

Before Deputy FitzGerald says too much he should question who is sitting on the publicity committee of his organisation. No civil servant in my Department is sitting on any party election committee.

Question No. 3.

On a point of order, Deputy Horgan has a question down on this subject——

The Taoiseach has made an allegation——

He was allowed one supplementary.

No, Deputy, this is his question now.

I hope he will be given more latitude on it.

I will not enter into any argument with the Deputy on this.

You seem to be in a particularly defensive mood today.

I am not in the least defensive.

On a point of order, in case it might appear to anybody that the Taoiseach was suggesting by innuendo that any election committee of ours contains a civil servant this is, of course, incorrect.

I did not say it contains a civil servant but it contains a very prominent member of a State-sponsored body.

asked the Taoiseach whether he has established any committees in his Department; and the membership and functions of each committee.

I have established no committees in my Department.

Did the Taoiseach say he has established no committees in his Department?

Yes.

Can the Taoiseach indicate, specifically, what responsibilities he has assigned to the two civil servants, whose names I have mentioned, in his Department?

They have normal departmental duties the same as any other member of my Department which they discharge fully and adequately.

Has the Taoiseach specifically allocated those people to any particular jobs rather than to the general functions which they would have as members of his Department?

In accordance with the normal organisation and running of the Department they have special areas of responsibility of a departmental nature.

What are the special areas of responsibility which are occupied by those two people?

It is not the practice to disclose that sort of detail about the administration of any Government Department. They are part of the establishment of my Department and they perform normal departmental duties the same as any other member of my staff.

Would the Taoiseach not agree that his unwillingness to disclose this can leave people with the impression that he has something to hide?

That seems to be the general impression among the Deputy's friends and colleagues but I can assure him that in the running of my Department there is no departure from the well-established practice and precedent which Taoisigh before me have engaged in since the foundation of the State and which other Ministers of this Government and previous Governments have all adopted.