On a point of order, the Minister states that he proposes to take Questions Nos. 36 and 37 together and he also proposed a similar method of dealing with Questions Nos. 31 and 32.

It is not a point of order.

He said "with your permission". What is the procedure in lumping questions together?

It is well established that the consent or permission of the Ceann Comhairle is not necessary to take questions together and that the Chair has no control over whether a Minister answer questions individually or groups a number of them together.

Is it available to the person posing the questions to ask the Minister not to lump the replies together?

It is open to the Deputy to do so but if the Minister proceeds otherwise nothing can be done about it.

You understand that this is a device being used by Ministers, not in regard to these two questions, to keep the regard to other questions, to keep the number of supplementaries to the minimum and I do not regard that as being strictly in accordance with procedure.

This is not a point of order and the Chair will not be influenced in regard to the number of supplementaries by whether the questions are being taken individually or together.

My recollection is that your predecessor circulated Ministers of the outgoing Government with the suggestion that we drop the use of the words "with your permission". Presumably you will adhere to that.

The Chair understands that before this occupant took the Chair a circular was sent to Departments pointing out that the consent of the Chair was not necessary. That is what I have been telling Deputy Flynn.

I think he went a little further and suggested that we should not use these words.