26 June 2002

Dáil Second Reading of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Bill, 2002 

Speech by Mr. Charlie McCreevy T.D., Minister for Finance

A Cheann Chomhairle,

I move that the Bill be now read a second time.

This is a Bill of unusual importance for members who, for however long they have had the privilege of being elected to this house, spend long working days here and it is important also to the electorate. All of us who serve as Ministers in different Departments develop our own distinct perspectives on the Dáil, the Seanad and the organisation that supports the Houses but a Minister for Finance probably gets a differently shaded view.

I never fully realised the extent to which matters of day-to-day housekeeping affecting these Houses ended up on the Minister for Finance’s timetable. This may seem like an odd admission from a former opposition spokesman on Finance. However, I am not talking about the "front of house" exercises such as introducing Estimates for the Houses or answering PQs. While of critical importance, they are merely the visible tip of a much bigger iceberg. Oireachtas members, or groups of members, frequently state that they are not given the back up facilities, including staff, that they need to do their work. The result is a regular patter of parliamentarian feet towards the door of the Minister for Finance either on these premises or what they sometimes see as enemy territory in Upper Merrion St. What I propose to do through this Bill is to make that journey totally unnecessary because, on the kind of matters I mentioned and a lot more besides, the buck will stop with the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission.

The title of this Bill deserves some explanation. We in this House, and people generally, often use a kind of shorthand when referring to this place - Leinster House, the Oireachtas, parliament, the legislature and so on. The "Houses of the Oireachtas Commission" is a bit of a mouthful for ordinary conversation but there are times when we have to go for precision and the title of this body is one of them. It cannot be the "Oireachtas Commission" because the Oireachtas consists of the President as well as the Dáil and Seanad. What we are concerned with in this Bill is the administrative machine which provides the back up of essential services to serve and sustain these Houses and their members in discharging their public functions. The Bill also provides for the financial process which keeps that machine oiled and which generates the various services utilised by members.

The essence of this Bill is that it provides for the Houses of the Oireachtas to be headed up by a Commission composed, with the exception of the Secretary General, of members of this House and the Seanad, endowing them with an enhanced version of the powers vested in Ministers who have charge of Departments. More fundamentally, it provides the Commission with the financial resources, the upper limit to be specified in the Bill, to run that office and the financial affairs of the Houses for some years without having to come to the Minister for Finance or the Government.

This scenario would replace the process which has applied to funding Oireachtas activities since the foundation of the State. Currently, the annual Estimate for the Office is introduced by the Minister for Finance, debated in this House in the same way as estimates for other public services, with the expenditure being subject to controls and approvals by the Minister in much the same way as expenditure on Departments and Offices of State generally. Where complaints arose about this process they tended to relate to restrictions on budgets for new services or the expansion of existing services - much the same matters that involve the Minister for Finance and his Department in intermittent spats with other Ministers and their officials. More recently, complaints sometimes centred on the one obvious difference in the estimates process between the Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas and spending Departments. They had Ministers who could line up early with their officials to argue against particular cuts proposed by Finance and, if business wasn’t done, the Minister responsible for the Department could argue his or her case at the appropriate Government meeting.

Members felt at a disadvantage when making a case for additional resources at estimates time because they are ultimately dependent on the Minister for Finance promoting their side, often possibly against official proposals in his own Department, and to be their voice at the Government meeting which determined the allocations.

Successive Ministers have been conscious of the constitutional independence of the Oireachtas when dealing with the Office. In practice, they were sympathetic to demands from the Office and reflected this as much as circumstances allowed in the approach they took to requests for extra resources, although at times of necessity stringent cuts were made there as in other services. Procedures were established under which a specially designated group of members met the Minister of the day to tease out and to prioritise proposed expenditure.

There was, however, in recent times a change in the character of the criticism. Obtaining approval always took time and refusals were irksome but in a faster moving environment it has become a greater source of annoyance. There was also a concern that it is not appropriate that the Executive should control the resources of Parliament, the body charged with holding the Executive to account. The Bill does address the "traditional" criticisms but it does more than that. It is a practical response to the new conditions affecting these Houses and their members, recognition of new requirements and the evolution of new relationships between parliamentarians and Ministers or the organisations they head.

There was a growing sense that the Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas had outgrown the financial and control structures with which it had been endowed at the foundation of this State. I know that the former Chief Whip and now Minister for Transport, Deputy Brennan, was exploring with his counterparts what accelerated reforms would have consensus support and I am aware that other parties were teasing out the implications for their members of scenarios for possible change. Sufficient agreement existed on what should be done for members of the PAC Subcommittee on Certain Revenue Matters to sketch it out in their First Report published in December 1999.

I and my Cabinet colleagues were also conscious of a wide feeling among members of these Houses that our parliament was under-resourced in terms of facilities which members thought were not merely desirable, but essential, in a modern parliament exercising its constitutional function of supervising the executive. I can’t help feeling that this is connected with a little remarked change in the character of Dáil Éireann in the last decade or so.

We now have a House where experience of Government office is more diffused among both its parties and members, than was the case previously and there is, I believe, an anxiety to put that experience to work more effectively in the business of the Oireachtas. The cynical may see this as a case of poachers turning gamekeepers, and having resumed their old career, wanting to have any perk or facility the gamekeeper enjoyed. I don’t, and can’t, see it that way.

We were also very much aware that a view was widespread here about the levels of staffing available to the Houses. These views were reinforced by increasing contact between members of this House with other parliaments - be it the European Parliament; parliaments of other EU States, or other countries with Governments and systems similar to our own. Any Minister for Finance has a natural distrust of international comparisons because he finds them used by every pressure group, trade union, sectional interest – even his colleagues - to prove that in comparable countries whatever service they are involved with costs more, has much better paid staff, more sophisticated equipment or is manned by several times the number of staff deployed on it here. Often when these stories are checked – the facts turn out to be very different. Nevertheless, I was persuaded of the desirability of having the Office commission an International Benchmarking Review to provide an international comparison which took account of differences of function and culture on resourcing and staffing levels required for the proper functioning of a modern parliament.

My hope was to have this study to hand earlier this year but it took longer than expected to agree the terms of reference and modus operandi governing the study. These were not concluded before last Summer’s recess and, as a result, the study started late. The report from that exercise - which came in two parts - has just been finalised and will enable a realistic figure for staff and support costs either arising from the civil service staff, or the staff made available directly to members to be computed in a realistic manner on the basis of an objective study. The staffing levels recommended will be included in the sum incorporated in the Bill to meet the expenses of the Commission going forward.

I mention the international benchmarking exercise for two reasons. First it shows that significant work has been done on a new configuration of institutional support for members in their vital tasks and, secondly, because it has an important bearing on the core of this Bill. The central figure of this Bill is just that – a figure, an amount of money which should appear very clearly in Section 5 of the Bill. That figure was, and still is, to be agreed with the Ceann Comhairle, and once embedded in this Bill when enacted and brought into force, it will be available to the Commission as a matter of right to meet the current expenditure costs associated with running the Office of the Houses of Oireachtas. It is the amount the Commission can charge on the Central Fund over the period provided in the Bill, three years. Once embedded in an Act neither I, the Government nor any Minister for Finance can reduce, increase or renew it without coming back to this House and having an Act passed. It is important to emphasise that these arrangements relate to current, not capital, expenditure.

As I said, that sum is intended to last the Commission for three years following which there will have to be another Bill and another agreement, with a new amount and a new timeframe established. Some concerns have been expressed at the prospect of having to enact new legislation every three years and the ensuing media attention this would give rise to.

Where moneys are a charge on the Central Fund, I believe it is appropriate that the overall service be comprehensively reviewed periodically.

We do not know what new expenditure requirements might arise or what levels of expenditure the Commission might consider necessary on existing services. What this Bill does is to provide for an amount of money to run this institution. When that money runs out new legislation involving a fresh allocation negotiated for another period will be needed. If because of recess or rigidities of Oireachtas business this cannot be done, authority is provided to the Commission to draw on, as a holding operation, one half of the amount provided for in the previous year. A comparable arrangement applies to the spending of voted moneys in advance of the estimate being passed.

Initially, the general scheme envisaged the expenses incurred by the Commission being a charge on the Central Fund for a period of three to five years. I believe that it is prudent to provide for a limited period of three years at the outset. This can be revisited when the legislation is being formulated for the next round of funding. There may be a view among parliamentarians that these arrangements could be simplified by allowing the amount to be updated from time to time by way of Statutory Order. There are two points about this. While I am confident that the arrangements set out in the Bill are eminently workable, the truth is that we are moving into unchartered waters about which some people outside these Houses may be sceptical and experience of working the new system may throw up practical issues which require some fine tuning. Secondly, I believe it a healthy proposal that this House should have the opportunity to have an in-dept discussion of the funding of the Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas every three years or so.

I had hoped that at this stage we would have a definitive figure incorporated in Section 5 but it is impossible to arrive at a realistic figure until the effects of implementing the International Benchmarking recommendations are incorporated into the Office’s costings.

That exercise started much later than intended and has only just been delivered. It is not permitted to have a section in a Bill with a blank area marked "to be inserted", for this reason we have, as a holding operation, provided a notional figure for three years expenditure. This will be replaced by whatever sum is agreed between myself and the Ceann Comhairle before Committee Stage. The findings of the International Benchmarking Review will provide the primary basis for this figure.

I don’t like to convey the impression that apart from the end of the three year period or the money the Commission will be out of the public eye. Each year a member of the Oireachtas Commission, or a member of the House nominated by the Commission, will under Section 13 of the Bill present to this House a statement of the expenditure by the Houses showing how a portion of the overall sum provided by the Oireachtas in the legislation will be spent in the following year. Instead of being formally granted by a vote, the estimate will be taken note of by the Dáil.

The purpose of this is twofold (i) it keeps the Houses of the Oireachtas informed and (ii) the statement of estimated expenditure for the following year’s budget is then passed to the Minister for Finance to allow him to include the amount in the Estimates of Receipts and Expenditure. This will replace the current procedure whereby its annual estimate is presented by the Minister for Finance.

The other major element in the Bill is the proposed Commission which will take responsibility for the organisation and staffing of the Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas. It proposes that it will have eleven members, all but one being members of the Oireachtas. These are

the Ceann Comhairle as Chairman of the Commission;

the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad;

Secretary General of the Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas;

a representative of the Minister for Finance, who will be a member of the Houses of the Oireachtas except during periods of dissolution;

Up to four representatives of this House to be nominated by this House or a committee established for this purpose;

Up to three members of Seanad Éireann to be nominated by Seanad Éireann or a Committee established for this purpose.

The philosophy underlying the Bill is that the governance of the Houses of the Oireachtas should rest with the members of those Houses. What this effectively does is to provide the Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas with a "Commission" which will have the managerial role which Ministers have in their individual departments.

Indeed, a wider role in that the Commission, unlike Ministers, will not require the Minister for Finance’s authority for the expenditure incurred under the provisions of this Bill. With this in mind the only non-Parliamentarian to be a member of the Commission will be the Secretary General of the Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas (the Clerk of the Dáil) in his capacity as Secretary General of the Office and in effect the Commission’s chief executive. The selection of the seven ordinary members is a matter for each House and there are a variety of ways in which this could be done, but it is for each House to decide how they are to be chosen. The remaining parliamentarian is to represent the Minister for Finance. I want to emphasise that, having eliminated the Minister from his traditional control role in regard to the Office, this is not a Machiavellian plot to reintroduce him by the back door. The representative is there to represent the Minister because of his role in relation to the Central Fund, public service remuneration and civil service matters which impinge on the Office and members; and his continuing role as the sponsor of legislation on Oireachtas matters.

The Bill proposes the Ceann Comhairle as the automatic Chairman of the Commission. It has been argued that the Commission should appoint its own Chair. However, having considered this question carefully I am particularly conscious that the Ceann Comhairle has traditionally been the public face of the Houses of the Oireachtas and is also accepted as being free of party ties in the discharge of his existing functions. These are desirable characteristics in a Chairperson of the Commission. I also believe that the separation of the Ceann Comhairle and Commission chairing roles could give rise to difficulties centring on clarity of roles. These circumstances have convinced me that the Ceann Comhairle should be ex-officio Chairperson of the Commission and Section 7 of the Bill provides accordingly.

The Bill also deals with the arrangements which affect members during a dissolution period, as well as the removal and resignation of members. In essence, when a member ceases to be a member of the House which appointed him or has ceased for specified reasons to have its confidence, he leaves the Commission. The same applies to the Minister’s representative. During a dissolution the Chairman of each House remains in place until a successor is appointed and a temporary Minister’s representative who must be a Minister or Minister of State may be appointed.

I am aware that some members have expressed concern about the proposal to provide for dismissal of ordinary members of the Commission. While I can well understand concerns about ill founded allegations having detrimental effects on persons in public life, I cannot visualise a situation where either House could not remove a Commission member, which it had appointed, having formed the view that he or she was culpable of stated misbehaviour.

Accordingly, the Bill provides that an ordinary member can be removed because of incapacity, stated misbehaviour and to facilitate the effective functioning of the Commission, but only on a resolution passed by the House which appointed him or her.

When this Bill was being prepared for publication, I was insistent that the explanatory memorandum accompanying it should set out in some detail what the provisions in each section did, and also a brief summary of the underlying principles. I did this to ensure that from the launch of its text, members of this House had a very clear idea of what it contained, and to avoid the risk of the Bill being misunderstood. Having done so in that document, I am not inclined to repeat the exercise in section by section tutorials. However there are a few matters which may require comment.

The Bill envisages the transfer of various functions from the Ceann Comhairle, the Cathaoirleach and the Minister for Finance to the Commission.

In this way the Commission shall determine the funding, staffing and organisation of the Houses of the Oireachtas. It is proposed that the Minister for Finance will retain powers in relation to the rates of pay and allowances of members of the Houses of the Oireachtas and in relation to rates of pay, allowances and certain gradings of the officers and joint staff of the Houses of the Oireachtas. These relate for the most part to civil service wide linked grades. Otherwise, the Commission shall have responsibility for the funding and staffing.

Some changes have been made to the Bill since it was circulated at draft stage. The initial scheme provided for the Commission coming into being by way of resolution of the Dáil and Seanad. Legal advice suggested that this procedure was not Constitutionally essential as the functions of the Commission were administrative in nature and did not impinge on the business of the Houses regulated under Article 15.10.

The advice also suggested that the right which either House enjoyed to amend or rescind any resolution could at some stage bring about a situation where resolutions and the Act were in conflict, and cause serious problems in the management of the Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas. In these circumstances, Section 3 of the Bill proposes that the Commission shall stand established when the Minister for Finance makes the necessary establishment order.

One of the functions ascribed to the Commission is to provide for legal advice to be made available to members and committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas in respect of the business of the Houses. Currently when legal proceedings are being taken on foot of actions by either House or by Oireachtas Committees it is necessary to name individual members of such committees in any legal proceedings. This provision makes this unnecessary and allows the Commission to be a party to such proceedings where the authority to do so is provided by either or both Houses.

This Bill involves, as I have made clear, handing over virtually all of the functions of the Minister for Finance in regard to staffing the Office to the Commission. I will still retain responsibility for pay and pension matters affecting both members and staff. Under Section 12 the Commission are required to obtain the consent of the Minister for Finance if they wish to create posts at, or above, Principal (Higher) level. The main grade above this level in the civil service generally is Assistant Secretary General of which there is a relatively small number and it is important that no local arrangement should lead to any dilution of the quantity and quality of work normally attaching to those posts. It is my intention to operate this unusual arrangement by sanctioning such posts as I have ascertained to have the same level of ongoing work as the generality of such posts in the civil service.

It has been a fairly regular occurrence for Ministers for Finance to come before the House to sponsor legislation affecting members or their Houses. Much of this has been concerned with the bread and butter issues of pay and pensions. Some provided members with immunities which they needed to discharge their public duty, or imposed obligations on them in regard to ethics requirements and electoral financing. It was rare for my predecessors to deal with matters so fundamental as recasting the organisational framework within which the Houses of the Oireachtas function. I feel very privileged to be the Minister for Finance given the opportunity of introducing legislation which will transform the conditions under which we, and our successors, as members of this House can work for the betterment of our Nation.

I commend this Bill to the House.

END