asked the Minister for Defence if a Management Advisory Committee and a system of accountable management on the lines envisaged in the 1985 White Paper on the Public Service Serving the Public Better are now in operation in his Department; and, if not, whether he has any plans to introduce such a system.

, Limerick West): A Management Advisory Committee was established in my Department in 1985. As regards a system of accountable management it is the practice in my Department that senior officers i.e. Assistant Secretaries and Principal Officers have responsibility for specific functional areas of expenditure. In that connection I would also refer the Deputy to the reply given by the Minister for Finance to a parliamentary question on 31 January 1989 in regard to the various proposals set out in the White Paper. (Volume 386, No. 3; columns 610-616.)