Will the Taoiseach make himself available to answer questions in the House for a lengthy period rather than 30 seconds on the obscurity around public appointments? There is a crisis in confidence about public accountability in the senior echelons of our Civil Service. Following today's interview by the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, accounting for the secondment to Trinity College Dublin, TCD, at €187,000 per year, which is a multimillion euro cost to the taxpayer, there is a crisis and people like me who have been around the Houses for 20 years can be forgiven-----

Thank you, Deputy. Time is up.

-----for thinking that the Cabinet has become little more than rubber stamps for the will of senior civil servants-----

Please, Deputy.

-----who are feathering their own nests and, while Cabinet members run around the world doing other business, are totally unaccountable to the Houses.

Please, Deputy. The time is up.

Can I ask the Taoiseach about when he will make himself available-----

No, you cannot.

-----to answer questions on this matter?

Deputy, will you please resume your seat?

It needs to be done. Today, the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, was evasive-----

Deputy-----

-----patronising and, frankly, embarrassing. He treated the Members of this House like we were idiots. The Taoiseach needs to do something about it.

The Taoiseach is not answering in "30 seconds". I have asked him to facilitate the House. You-----

The Taoiseach has 40 opportunities.

-----did not facilitate the House-----

I get one of 30 seconds per week while-----

-----when you were asked.

-----all these other de facto parties-----

Resume your seat.

-----are up and down like jack-in-the-boxes.

Resume your seat.

That was the most pertinent question in terms of taxpayers' money and public accountability put today.

It is not your job to evaluate other people's questions.

We will see if the Taoiseach wants to answer it or not.

Resume your seat, please.

He has left.

Well, you might wait for the answer now.

I know what it will be.

Then why bother asking it?