Finance Minister Brian Lenihan has said a report into how his department handled the economic and financial crisis will lead to changes in its structure.
'That report will be ready in a matter of weeks and will be implemented and will involve changes in the structure of the Department,' the Minister told RTÉ radio this morning.
Mr Lenihan appointed an external panel in September to review the performance of the department. He said the department was aware of the need to review and reform itself.
Mr Lenihan said the report had already found that two processes did a lot of damage - what he called the unsustainable political programmes drawn up by political parties and the dominance of the social partnership process.
ICTU general secretary David Begg said social partnership was being used as a 'scapegoat' for the current financial crisis, adding that the current situation was the fault of the banking industry and not unions.
The Fine Gael spokesman on enterprise, Richard Bruton, said it was disingenuous to blame social partnership for failings in the Department of Finance.
