Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny is to offer an end of term report on all his Government Ministers after Christmas.

The Fine Gael leader has confirmed that he will assess all his Ministerial office holders ahead of the first anniversary of the February election.

Each Minister will be questioned about his performance in office over the last 10 months as the PM holds them accountable to the public.

Kenny will personally interview all Ministers and examine how they have performed to date since the coalition took power at the end of February.

“There will be some straight talking here about getting on with this business,” said Kenny in a private Christmas briefing with journalists in Government Buildings.
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Reports say that the government boss will sit down with each Minister in January and hold them to account, determine what they have done for their department and what needs to be done in time for the end of the political year in March.

“We’re not here to mess around,” added Kenny. “This is a Programme for Government but obviously I want people to get on with it so that we can say we are following through our commitments.

“If there’s an issue that can’t be dealt with, I want to know the reasons behind that.”

Kenny also intends to set up an office within his own department to "have the Programme for Government translated into actionable parts that refer to each minister."

The Irish leader explained: “So that you can say to Minister X, look here are 127 issues that need to be referred to your department and that are your responsibility for the Programme for Government.

“The Ministers will then have until the report’s publication to focus on what else they need to deal with before the year’s end. We’ll be able to see what every Minister has actually achieved in their individual departments.

“I will sit down with them all and say - look, here’s your list. There will be a full report made public at the end of March and I want to see you making your case. Are you measuring up to your responsibility?”

The Irish Independent reports that Kenny also confirmed at the briefing that his government’s main focus remains job creation with unemployment at 14.5% and almost 450,000 people on the dole nationwide.

“I’m only too conscious of the scale of the challenge ahead and the distance that we have to travel,” said PM Kenny. “Unemployment for me remains and will continue to be the central focus of what we have to do here.

“The answer to our country’s problems is employment, job opportunities, career opportunities.”