Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I fully understand the issues raised by Deputy Ó Snodaigh. I apologise; I did not mean to imply that he wanted to do the same with the Clerk of the Seanad. At the moment there is an esteem due to the Seanad as a standalone House, even more so since the approval by the people's vote to retain the House. It would seem odd if the Dáil alone had the status of a TLAC-appointed Clerk and Clerk Assistant and the Seanad had not. The Deputy made reference to the acting Clerk of the Dáil. There is a person of equal status running the administrative side of the Dáil, so suddenly one of the two equal officers would be appointed by TLAC while the other would not. That would be confusing.

There was a bit of uncertainty around the process of acting up when a Clerk retires and a vacancy arises. This is dealt with in the new section 3 of the Bill, which states:

Without prejudice to the power of the Secretary General to assign responsibility for performance of the functions for which he or she is responsible to members of the staff of the Commission, the functions of the Secretary General may be performed—(a) during any period of absence on the part of the Secretary General, by such member or members of the staff of the Commission as may have been authorised for that purpose by a direction given by the Secretary General or, in the absence of such a direction, by such member or members of the staff of the Commission as the Commission may authorise for that purpose, or

(b) during any period in which the office of Secretary General is vacant, by such member or members of the staff of the Commission as the Commission may authorise for that purpose.

So there is a direct capacity given to the Commission to appoint a person to the acting official role of Clerk of the Dáil. I caution against dislodging the balance that exists between the senior officers of the Seanad and the Dáil. We should take it step by step, and I suggest we do it first, in terms of the TLAC process, for the Clerk of the Dáil alone.