MINISTERS WILL be held to account at the end of March for their success or failure in implementing the commitments made in the programme for government, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has revealed.
Mr Kenny said yesterday that he will meet Ministers individually in January to itemise their responsibilities in terms of “actionable points” in the programme, and will be demanding a progress report from each of them at the end of the Government’s first year in office.
In an interview with political correspondents, the Taoiseach said that he had established an office in his own department to translate the programme into “actionable points” so that the performance of Ministers can be assessed.
“One of the things I notice, in the general run of the mill that happens about Cabinet meetings, is that a lot of the material that comes through for Government decision is not actually central to the programme for government itself. These are things that happen on a daily and weekly basis.
“So what I’ve done in that regard is to actually set up an office here in my own department, at no extra cost because it is redeployment of personnel, to look at the programme for government, and to have it translated into actionable points in respect of each Minister.”
Mr Kenny said that the process will enable him to discuss with each Minister the rate of progress that is being made on every one of the points that comes under their responsibility in the programme.
“It means I can sit down in January with each individual Minister and say in relation to your responsibility in your department, ‘These are the actionable points in the programme for government.’” He said that there would be a year-end report at the end of March, which was not much more than 12 weeks away, so that individual Ministers could focus on what needed to be dealt with in their departments in the intervening period.
“So they are getting adequate notice that, by the end of March, we’ll have an end-of-year report from Government in a much more accessible fashion. Because rather than just the document of the programme for government, it will be translating that into actionable points.”
Mr Kenny declined to say what action might be taken against Ministers who failed to deliver on their commitments, saying his objective was to focus his Cabinet team on delivering the stated commitments of the Government.
“If there’s a reason why there can’t be work going on about these things, I want to know it. And if there’s an issue that can’t be dealt with, I want to know the reasons behind that,” said Mr Kenny.
“Obviously, Ministers cannot account for constitutional blockages as in the case of upward-only rent. But we’ll have some straight talking here about getting on with this business,” he added.
The Taoiseach said he would listen to the case Ministers would make on how they were measuring up to their responsibilities. “We’re not here to mess around, these are levers that are made available by the people on an occasion of an election and it’s the duty of Government to follow through on these things.”
The Taoiseach said that by breaking down the programme into actionable points, he was making it easier for Ministers to focus clearly on the items they needed to implement by the end of March.
“This is a programme for a full period of government. But obviously I want people to get on with it so that we can say we are actually following through on our stated commitments,” he said.