Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2020-07-30
============================================================

Alan Kelly (LAB), Tipperary

I have been raising the issue of the Minister, Deputy Coveney's, State car. In relation to that, the five things we now know are that the Tánaiste made the request for this when he was Taoiseach; the current Taoiseach knew nothing about it, even though it was actioned while he was Taoiseach; the Minister for Justice and Equality knew nothing about it; the Government decision from 2011 regarding the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality having State cars still stands and has not been changed; and there is no paper trail and all of this has been done orally. I have some questions for the Tánaiste. How could he, as Taoiseach in the previous Government, make a request for a State car for a Minister in a Government that had not yet been formed? How is that constitutionally possible? Did he make this request in the full knowledge that Deputy Coveney would be the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade in a Government that had not yet been formed?

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2020-07-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:30+00:00
Sitting date: 2020-07-30