Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"— welcomes the commitment in the Renewed Programme for Government to increase transparency by putting as much information as possible on appropriate Government websites to inform the public of the workings of Government and State institutions, by expanding the Freedom of Information Acts to include specific administrative matters in An Garda Síochána, and by legislating to prevent employers in the public and private sectors from retaliating against employees who, in the public interest, disclose misconduct;

— recognises that legislation already provides for spending limits for local, general, European and Presidential elections and welcomes the commitment in the Renewed Programme for Government to provide for further controls on political donations;

— welcomes the commitment in the Renewed Programme for Government to provide for regulation of lobbyists and notes the need for appropriate advancement of this based on the studies undertaken and emerging international experience;

— welcomes the commitment in the Renewed Programme for Government to introduce a more open and transparent system for appointments to public bodies;

— welcomes the commitment in the Programme for Government to extend the provisions of the Code of Conduct for Civil Servants in relation to the acceptance of outside appointments and of consultancy engagements following resignation or retirement to all public servants in designated posts so as to ensure that they shall not within twelve months of resigning or retiring from the service:

— accept an offer of appointment from an employer outside the Civil Service where it is deemed to create a conflict of interest; and

— accept an engagement in a particular consultancy project, where the nature and terms of such appointment or engagement could lead to a conflict of interest, without first obtaining approval from the Outside Appointments Board;

— welcomes the Government's tabling of a Dáil reform package aimed at improving the efficiency of the Dáil's procedures, the relevance of the Dáil in terms of addressing issues of topicality and concern to Members, and the family-friendly nature of Dáil sitting times, and acknowledges the effort by Government to achieve a consensus on this reform package;

— highlights the comparative analysis carried out by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission in its 2009 Annual Report which shows that the Oireachtas "performs well when benchmarked against other national parliaments in terms of total sitting days and sitting hours";

— notes that measures have already been put in place to improve the budget process, including the introduction of a unified Budget and the development of Annual Output Statements, and that a range of appropriate structural reform measures will be put in place in the context of the forthcoming Four Year Plan to improve performance budgeting and the Estimates processes; and

— notes that there are already ample provisions in the Public Service Management Act 1997 to allow a Secretary General or Head of Office to:

— manage the Department/Office, implement Government policies appropriate to the Department or Office, monitor Government policies that affect the Department/Office and deliver outputs as determined with the Minister of the Government having charge of the Department/Office;

— provide progress reports to the Minister on the implementation of the Department's Strategy Statement annually or at such intervals as the Government may direct;

— provide advice to the Minister on any matter affecting or connected with the responsibilities of the Department/Office;

— ensure that the resources of the Department/Office are used in a manner that is in accordance with the requirements of the Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Act 1993; and

— assign responsibility to other officers of the Department/Office."

I wish to share my time with Deputies Scanlon and Aylward.

See this speech in context