Talk:Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media

Former Ministers for Energy

Is there any good reason for the inclusion of Ministers for (Industry and) Energy here — other than the fact that the Energy Dept disappeared and the Tourism (and Trade) Dept was created on the same date in 1993? Should perhaps go under "Defunct"? -- Picapica 10:49, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Irish governments are often quite lasy in this respect and rather change the title of the department and minister. See for instance [1]. This is the actual order which allowed the change of name from "Energy" to "Tourism and Trade". Even though they are quite different portfolios it is essentially the same minister and department which inherits all responsibilities and liabilities (this may change by further orders). A ministers and secretaries (amendment) act is required to create a "new" department and minister, something that is not often done and not in this case. Ultimately this minister and department are not defunct but renamed. Djegan 13:26, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for that explanation, Djegan. Perhaps a little note about that would be in order in the article? (However, I'm giving Irish ministers a rest for the remainder of today!) -- Picapica 13:34, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think we need to reconsider whether it might not be better to identify them as separate ministries, as the linear approach can be quite confusing, because of the lazy way, as you say, in which the changes take place and responsibilities shift. E.g. anyone who now clicks from Michael D. Higgins' page Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht gets taken to the page of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs (because of the progression in names and change in responsibilities), rather than to the page of the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. For the purposes of clarity might it not be better to treat them as if each new title were a new creation? Cripipper (talk) 15:10, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

That would lead to even more confusion and could leave you open to charges of OR. While I agree that is does seem strange that Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht now redirects to Children and Youth Affairs, it was the Irish government who renamed Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs as Children and Youth Affairs and distributed the former component parts to 3 different departments. You may think its lazy but that what was done and that is legal. Snappy (talk) 20:40, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

How would it lead to even more confusion? The current approach means that instead of getting directed to the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, which is basically the same ministry Michael D held, a reader gets directed to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs. If a reader goes now to the page for [Department_of_Arts,_Heritage_and_the_Gaeltacht], and looks back over the history, they would be lead to believe that there was no Ministry of the Arts, Culture/Heritage and the Gaeltacht between 1992 and 2003 (that information being available under the page of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs!) By adopting the current legalistic approach a reader is less informed, not more, which is surely the point of an encyclopedia! Someone (not me!) has, for example, changed the link from Michael D's page, so that it links to [Department_of_Arts,_Heritage_and_the_Gaeltacht] and not [Department_of_Arts,_Culture_and_the_Gaeltacht] to avoid the confusion. However, while on the page they will see no mention of Michael D's tenure as minister. Clearly the current situation is unsatisfactory and something needs to be done to clarify things. Cripipper (talk) 12:54, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

This discussion needs promotion to the WikiProject. Articles about any current or former ministerial title or department need a coherent review, to decide what method of presentation will be best.

At any given time, there are a number of Ministers and Departments. (A minister can have 2 departments, or be without portfolio, but neither complicates things.) Each minister has responsibility for a number of broad policy areas, and specific powers granted under specific statutes. Each department can control a number of agencies. Section 6 of the 1939 Act allows the policy areas, powers and agencies to be transferred from one minister/department to another, and/or for a department to be renamed. Where a broad policy area is transferred, the source and target departments are often renamed to reflect this. With a small transfer, there may be no rename. I seem to recall Garret Fitzgerald devoting one of his Irish Times columns to criticising successive Governments' constant rejigging of departments after each reshuffle. Noel Whelan certainly did so: "Division of cabinet portfolios is ad-hoc and confused".

• The relevant changes are listed at irishstatutebook.ie: Alphabetical list of orders made under section 6 (1) of the Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Act, 1939
  • These list name changes and function transfers. When there is a name change there is a function transfer; e.g.
    • SI 1986/40 renamed Fisheries and Forestry to "Tourism, Fisheries and Forestry"
    • SI 1986/41 renamed Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism to "Industry and Commerce", and
    • SI 1986/42 transferred Tourism from Industry and Commerce to Tourism, Fisheries and Forestry
• From that I had sort-of collated up to 2010 at User:Jnestorius/List of changes in Irish government departments. The "Department-hopping sectors" section is most relevant to the present discussion. The page only deals with the main department renames, not other transfers of specific functions between departments (e.g. SI 158 of 1968 transferred Hire Purchase regulation from Industry&Commerce to Finance).

Some departments have a core function that has never changed, so that the relevant article can reasonably be kept as at present. Others have a more complex history and I think need reworking. My split would be:

OK

(title is the "core" function) President/Taoiseach, Finance, Justice, Local Govt / Environment, Education, Agriculture, Defence, Foreign Affairs, Health, Social Welfare, Supplies

Rework

(titles, taken from User:Jnestorius/List of changes in Irish government departments#Diachronic list of departments, are necessarily non-canonical) Commerce, Natural resources, Gaeltacht, Public Service / Transport 2,Planning / Energy / Tourism, Labour / Equality, Communications, P & T, Transport 1)

For the "rework", we clearly need one article for each current department, at its current title, and listing the policy areas and agencies currently within it. Many of the agencies will also have Wikipedia articles. When an agency is transferred from one department to another this can be noted in the agency article. I think it would be useful to also have articles about the policy areas; these articles could note when they are transferred.

Some of the following relates only to the "rework", some also relates to the "OK" departments:

• The Department of State (Ireland) needs a section explaining the whole messy renaming habit. This could be linked to from other articles. Or maybe a subpage, with a broad synopsis across all departments of renames and function transfers. But would be hard to fit a table or flowchart onto a screen without having scrollbars in both dimensions.
• The Minister of X article and the history section of the Department of X article could be merged to History of the Department of X, which should be based on functional responsibility, not lineal succession of renamed departments. (Maybe there could be a separate lineal succession page, something like User:Jnestorius/List of changes in Irish government departments#Diachronic list of departments, but it's rather trivial, however legally official.)
  • That means most current departments will be the successor of multiple previous departments in parallel.
• The department articles have an "overview of functions" section. These sections can be broken down by functional area, and each area Y can have its own sub article (Y policy and administration, which would list agencies under its remit and the history of which department it fell under. e.g. Gaeltacht policy and administration would

• mention
  • the current responsible department: Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (2011-)
    • the historical responsible department: Department of the Gaeltacht (1956–1993) Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht (1993–1997) Department of Arts, Heritage Gaeltacht and the Islands (1997–2002) Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (2002–2010) Department of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs (2010–2011)
    • the responsible minister (listed against the relevant historical/current department)
    • relevant department functions/agencies: Údarás na Gaeltachta, Irish Language Summer Colleges, etc.
  • areas of other departments besides the main one: TG4, etc
• Also be the direct subarticle for Gaeltacht#Administration

• Currently, Department of State (Ireland)#List of Departments of State lists are split between "current" and "former". "Current" obviously makes sense, but "former" really doesn't. Why does Minister for Communications get its own page but Minister for Lands redirect to Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources? The article Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport ignores the fact that the Department of Transport was abolished in 1983.
• I think the Department and Minister title should point to the same target. What that target is depends:
  • if a former title is a subset of the current title, no confusion in redirecting to History of the Department of X e.g. Minister for Agriculture and Food (Ireland)→History of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
  • Otherwise, I don't think it should redirect to any current department; it's too confusing. In the most general case, where the former title is now split between multiple departments, it would have its own page, detailing the ministers and governments when the title was used, the functional sections included, and the (one or more) predecessor and successor departments.
    • if there has only been one minister with a given title, the title could redirect to the person: Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development→Joe Walsh (Irish politician)
    • if there was only one government with the given title, the title could redirect to that government: Minister for Marine and Natural Resources→Government of the 28th Dáil

And when that's all fixed: then there are a few Category:Ministers of State of Ireland by title (Minister of State for Food, Horticulture and Food Safety) but not others. I think attempting to form succession lists for these is pointless spaghetti. jnestorius^(talk) 05:56, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

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