Youngest TD's report cards find some Ministers must try harder

BACKGROUND:Simon Harris submitted a Dáil question to each Minister asking for a progress report

FINE GAEL TD Simon Harris may have been encouraging his colleagues to “chillax” this week, but he has been busy obtaining “report cards” on every Government Minister.

Enda Kenny mentioned he would keep “report cards” on the performance of his Cabinet members when he appeared on the Late, Late Show shortly after becoming Taoiseach, but the initiative was quietly dropped.

However, Harris recently submitted a parliamentary question to each Minister asking which programme for government commitments relating to their departments had been implemented to date.

The Dáil’s youngest deputy went so far as to request that Ministers outline in tabular form the commitments pertaining to their particular portfolios and the current status of the promises.

The self-assessed nature of the responses he received means some of the replies are franker than others. The Taoiseach dismisses the Coalition’s programme for government promise to “legislate on the issue of Cabinet confidentiality” by saying “Cabinet confidentiality is provided for in the Constitution”.

He assesses the majority of commitments relating to the Department of the Taoiseach as either “completed” or “in progress”, although he admits that action is required in a number of areas.

These include the simple pledge requiring the chief executive of every State-funded body to appear before an Oireachtas committee to answer pre-submitted questions on a regular basis.

Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton concedes the Government has “modified” its programme commitment to hitting targets to reduce the number of people experiencing poverty. The proposed timescale has been revised.

The plan to put household benefit packages out to tender so that the exchequer could benefit from reduced prices is no longer considered feasible, according to Burton.

This decision was based on advice from the Chief State Solicitors Office, the Commission for Energy Regulation and the Competition Authority.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan said most of his commitments were “on track” but the promise to exempt from VAT service companies that export more than 90 per cent of their output was not being pursued “in line with legal advice”.

Minister for Health James Reilly deems the bulk of his department’s programme for government commitments as work “in progress” while the remaining five are filed under “completed”.

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin claimed “significant progress” had been made in his department.

He stressed that many of the reforms in the programme were “ambitious” and needed “careful sequencing”, however.

“Some may take the whole lifetime of the Government to complete,” Howlin said