Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 1 July 2015

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform

Houses of the Oireachtas (Appointments to Certain Offices) Bill 2014: Committee Stage

4:30 pm

Photo of Brendan HowlinBrendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have certainly given careful consideration to this proposal. The reason for putting the formal TLAC process in place for the Clerk of the Dáil position is that it is a Secretary General level position. With respect to the three positions being proposed by Deputy Ó Snodaigh to be encompassed in the TLAC proposal, none of them has a current status higher than principal officer, which would not be normally a category determined by TLAC. I am also anxious that there would be flexibility in the Houses of the Oireachtas. The Houses of Oireachtas are specialist and the power of the commission under the stewardship of the Ceann Comhairle - it would be under the stewardship of the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad in the case of the Clerk of the Seanad - to make those recommendations is the appropriate process on balance rather than to take it to a TLAC level, which it is not currently. It is something a future Oireachtas might determine to do but we will make this significant change first and leave the other three categories to be appointed in the way I have suggested, which is that the appointment in regard to officers of the Dáil would be determined by the commission on the nomination of the Ceann Comhairle from the existing cadre of staff, and in regard to the Seanad, on the nomination of the Cathaoirleach from the existing cadre of staff there.

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