Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to put my view on the public record. We did speak about this matter in private, as other Deputies have said. It is only this morning that I discovered the limited number of staff available to the secretariat by comparison with the number that were available to the banking inquiry. The amount of work they do on our behalf is phenomenal. As Deputy Connolly said, they are coping. There is the equivalent of a mini-banking inquiry going on here every week, if not from month to month. When one considers the various reports we are producing at the moment, one recalls that the banking inquiry had an entire floor in Agriculture House. It had 20 or 30 people at its disposal. In fact, there was an additional member of staff for each of the members of the banking inquiry. It is not that I am looking for that – I am not – but I am appalled, quite frankly, that the secretariat of the Committee of Public Accounts, the only constitutional committee of the State, is limited to six or seven staff. I was genuinely of the view, given the quality of the work coming our way and the research, that there was a team of 20 people behind the scenes. The clerk, the members of the secretariat themselves and the Chairman should put a plan together and ascertain our optimal number of staff in terms of research, secretarial and administrative functions. They should go to the Ceann Comhairle and Oireachtas Commission and make the case for them. The importance of the work is such that it demands that.