Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Durkan will be left wondering about our secret secret service. It is a secret in Ireland but not in other countries. The secret service could be all around us. Who knows?

As for Vote 17, relating to the Public Appointments Service, something else that was dealt with at length on the committee before Deputy Donohoe became Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform is the significant pay increase we saw for a senior official. It was above the bar and, obviously, as the Minister will be aware, was a matter of significant public interest. Our committee, along with the Committee of Public Accounts, issued a joint report on the matter. At the time we requested that the Commission for Public Service Appointments, CPSA, appear before the committee as the regulator of public service appointments. It felt that it was inappropriate for it to come before the committee to discuss that matter. I did not really understand the rationale behind that. One of our concerns at the time was that granting such pay increases could set off similar demands in other positions. I had seen recently a report in the media that senior officials in another Department had sought quite significant pay increases. Does the Minister share the concern that a significant pay increase in one Department may well have knock-on effects?