Reassignment of Defence portfolio
Deputy Ó Fearghaíl asks when responsibility for Defence will be reassigned from the Taoiseach, arguing the Defence and Justice portfolios should not have been combined. Deputy Quinn says the Taoiseach will handle the matter and will not retain it indefinitely.
Earlier, when the Taoiseach spoke to the House and explained his new Cabinet appointments, he indicated he was taking the Department of Defence to himself, albeit on a temporary basis. In so doing, I suppose he was accepting a point we have made here on many occasions, which is that the Department of Defence and the Department of Justice and Equality should not, in fact, ever have been combined. Will the Minister indicate when the role of Minister for Defence will be reassigned? The very least the members of the Defence Forces deserve from us is to be assured they are not some sort of afterthought on the part of the Government.
Comment on this
Self-evidently, the Taoiseach will deal with this matter himself, and it is a matter for him. I can assure the Deputy it is not the intention, as I understand it, for him to retain indefinitely the responsibility for the Department of Defence.