asked the Taoiseach if he will give details of new Government policy decisions which were announced by him during his address to the Fine Gael Ard Fheis.

I have arranged for copies of my Ard Fheis speech to be placed in the Library of the House and, if the Deputy is concerned with any specific aspect of Government policy mentioned in my speech, either I, or the responsible Minister, will be glad to deal with any parliamentary questions he might put down in this regard.

Was the Taoiseach correctly reported in The Irish Times of 24 October as saying:

To make quite clear our firm commitment in this area, I want to announce that the youth development officer scheme, .... will be continued and placed on a permanent basis.

Is the Taoiseach aware that on the Thursday before he made that statement — if that statement is correct — Deputy De Rossa raised that issue on the Adjournment? Is the Taoiseach aware that in the course of his reply, the Minister of State at the Department of Labour said, as reported at column 456 of the Official Report of 20 October 1983:

I have made it quite clear that the only decision taken was to continue the employment of any officer whose employment would otherwise terminate until the end of this year, ....

The Deputy will appreciate that there are a number of questions on this topic down to the Minister for Labour.

My question is not in relation to the youth development officers scheme. It is in relation to a reply to an Adjournment Debate and an announcement by the Taoiseach at the Ard Fheis, not announced to this House. I am asking if false information was given by Deputy G. Birmingham, junior Minister for Labour, or was the decision already taken and withheld until——

The position is that the matter came before the Government on Friday, a decision was taken on it and an announcement made on Friday. I was merely reminding the Ard Fheis what had already been decided and the wording, therefore, was fractionally different from but substantially similar to what the Deputy said.

And the Taoiseach also said that he had not seen a reference to it in a newspaper.

——and an Adjournment Debate in the course of which Deputy G. Birmingham gave false information.

My recollection is——

Wait now, Deputy Mac Giolla has asked a question.

Deputy Haughey's recollection of the Cabinet meeting might be a little vague but my recollection of it is quite clear. We took a decision at our meeting on Friday, an announcement was made on Friday and I took the opportunity on Saturday night of reminding people of it. For some reason it had not received publicity in the newspapers on Saturday. It had not been published in Saturday's papers as I had wanted it to be.

That was the point I wanted to make, that the Taoiseach upbraided the newspapers for not reporting it.

Upbraided is too strong a term.