asked the Minister for Finance the number of meetings the interdepartmental task force on rationalisation in the public sector, mentioned in the budget speech, have held; the dates and the Departments represented at each meeting; and the proposals for rationalisation that have been made by the task force.

21.

asked the Minister for Finance the proportion of the £25 million savings on rationalisation in the public sector included in the budget that was actually saved in the first quarter of the year; the Departments and the Vote heads and the subheads under which the savings were made; if there were any redundancies as a result of these savings; and the present projected level of savings for the whole year.

22.

asked the Minister for Finance his estimate of the value of savings achieved through rationalisation in the public service in the months of February and March 1981.

With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle I propose to take Questions Nos. 20 to 22, inclusive, together.

The task force consists of senior officers of the Departments of the Public Service, Finance, Education, Environment and Health and has met on 15 occasions. Eight of those meetings involved formal discussions with representatives of individual Departments, as follows:

The other formal meetings of the task force were held on 9 February, 23 February, 10 March, 2 April, 8 April, 10 April, and 16 April.

In addition, individual members of the task force have held informal discussions with officials of the Departments of Finance and the Public Service and of other Departments.

I have only recently received the report of the task force. Their proposals will require detailed consideration by the Government and I am not accordingly in a position to give an estimate of the likely savings at this stage.

Does the Minister realise that four months of the year have now passed, three of them since the presentation of the budget, and that he is not yet in a position to point to a single halfpenny of the £25 million in rationalisation which, in order to make his budget arithmetic balance, he claimed would be brought about.

That was a balance minus the £515 million.

The information sought by the Deputy was not asked for in the question but——

I am asking the Minister if he can point to a single Government operation into which the introduction of this team work has resulted in the saving of a demonstrable halfpenny.

I have outlined the position to the Deputy and, as I have said, I received the report only recently. This report contains items that must be considered by the Government and when that has been done I will let the Deputy know the position. In the meantime I can assure him——

He is not looking for an assurance. He is looking for an answer, but the answer is that there has been no saving yet.

Deputies must allow the Minister to reply.

I can assure the Deputy that there will be the saving of £25 million as provided for in the budget.

Is it the position that the operations being recommended by this committee are so drastic that they require governmental approval and that there is no scope for rationalisation of a kind which any Department could carry out by themselves as a matter of business?

What I said was that some items in the report require consideration by the Government.

Can the Minister let us know, then, how much is the saving in respect of the other items — those that do not require governmental consideration?

The report was received by me only recently.

When was this report received and when does the Minister expect to make a decision on it? Does he expect the matter to be presented to the Government within the next week? Also, is it the final report?

It is the final report and I received it last week on, I think, Thursday. I hope to put it before the Government very shortly.

The Minister has drawn a clear distinction between recommendations of this committee which will require governmental approval and those which will not require such approval. Regarding the latter, have the recommendations concerned gone ahead and, if not, why not? If they have gone ahead, how much has been saved as a result of them?

The Deputy should appreciate that the last meeting of this task force was held on 16 April and that I received their report last week. I will be carrying out the recommendations.

Will the decisions be announced publicly?

I am calling the next question.

I hope there is nobody watching from the Gallery?