Mr. David Moloney:

It is part of the current conversation. The committee produced a report earlier this year in relation to certain senior pay issues. The Minister set up an independent review panel that will look at many relevant issues. It is chaired by Dr. Donal de Buitléir and is on senior pay and remuneration.

The interaction between the kinds of accountability issues that the Deputy raises, the method and the ways and means by which senior civil servants are appointed and remunerated are an interlinked set of issues. To substantively restructure them would require a root-and-branch look at the three blocks of legislation, namely, the Ministers and Secretaries Act, the Public Service Management Act and the Civil Service Regulation Act. Those are the three blocks of legislation that determine the different pieces of that. The Deputy’s question relates to how the three come together. That is a set of issues that we are looking at. We have not made proposals at this stage. At this stage, we will probably await the finalisation of the independent review panel to do so but we are aware of the conversations that have gone on before committees and we are aware of the issues that have been raised in relation to it. We are happy to consider that and in due course to bring forward proposals to the Minister in relation to them. The only issue is that it would be quite a significant exercise. The reality is that the Ministers and Secretaries Act and the constitutional provisions are fairly fundamental building blocks for how governmental authority is structured. Moving to amend that in any significant way would potentially make a very fundamental difference.