asked the Minister for Finance if he will outline the substantial savings he proposes to make in the Departments of Justice, Environment, Education, Defence and others as referred to in page 12 of the financial statement dated 21 July 1981.

The savings referred to by the Deputy totalled £19.9 million. I would emphasise, as I already said in my financial statement, that, in general, the reductions made in the July budget still leave Departments with allocations not less than the original allocations in the January budget.

An outline of the savings referred to is included in a tabular statement which I propose, a Cheann Comhairle, to have circulated with the Official Report.

Following is the statement:

Arising from the Minister's reply, it is important that the public should be aware of any cutbacks in the financial allocations to the Departments mentioned by me and indeed any other Departments. We are all aware of the cutbacks in Education in the last week or two. We are aware of cutbacks in Justice and in Health in particular. The Minister should inform the House. A tabular statement is not sufficient at this stage. We must know. We are aware of cutbacks in Health, Education and other Departments. There have been cutbacks in Agriculture also.

In fact, the tabular statement gives a full list of each Department affected. I will give the list of the major Departments affected. The precise details of the matter, as the Deputy would no doubt appreciate, would be more appropriately provided by the Ministers concerned. However, the tabular statement which I have given the Deputy, which he will have and which the public will have within a matter of an hour, will provide him with the basis to put down specific parliamentary questions to the Ministers concerned and to obtain the information.

The Minister has the figures.

I have the figures here in front of me but they are being circulated with the Official Report.

Give them to us now.

If I were to do that the next question the Deputy would ask me would be about a particular one and we would start discussing that and would go from there onwards. I would end up answering questions which are properly the functions of other Ministers.

On a point of order, do I understand from the Minister in response to Deputy Nolan's question that he was saying that the reason he should not give Deputy Nolan the information which is contained in the tabular statement is that then Deputy Nolan would ask further questions? Surely, that is specifically what Question Time is for? That is why the Minister is in the House answering questions. Is he now to avoid the responsibility of having to give specific replies. This is in the interest of backbenchers as well as us here.

The Deputy has raised a point of order. I would reply that the content of a Minister's replies is not the concern of the Chair. The Chair cannot compel a Minister to reply. So, it is not a matter for the Chair.

I accept that but I think I am entitled to make the protest that I have made and I thank you for giving me the time to make that protest.

Further arising from the Minister's reply, the Minister mentioned specifically and I have here in the Official Report the Department of the Environment. We are all aware, particularly those Members of the House who are members of local authorities, that the Minister for the Environment has asked local authorities to find other means of financing their problems. I cannot see — my colleague Deputy Gene Fitzgerald raised that question — why the Minister should not disclose to the House the figures for the cutbacks.

Sorry, Sir, if I may say——

The public are entitled to know——

If the Deputy is not finished, I will let him finish the question.

Right, it is circulated with the Official Report but the public will not be aware of that because it is through the media that the public discover what goes on in this House. Therefore, a circular that goes out——

Perhaps the Deputy does not realise this but these tabular statements are available to the media as they are to Deputies at the end of Questions. Putting these figures in a tabular statement is in no way designed to prevent them coming to public knowledge. It is purely to avoid us getting into a situation where ministerial responsibility which in respect of the Departments concerned, except the Department of Finance, rests with other Ministers, should not become the subject of questions to the Minister for Finance. It is more appropriate, as the Deputy with his own ministerial experience will accept, that matters affecting a Department concerned, in the Deputy's case his own former Department, would be answered, if he were back in his job, by himself rather than by the Minister for Finance. I am sure he may have had the best of relations with Deputy Gene Fitzgerald but he would have preferred at the time to answer questions about his own Department rather than have his colleague answering for him. That is reasonable.