Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

While I am a little disappointed that the Deputy is taking my letter and also wants to divide the House, I understand her position. The Dáil is continuing to evolve, but there remains a quantitative difference between a parliamentary party and a technical group. I think Deputy Murphy acknowledges that. Each individual member of the Technical Group has a personal allowance for himself or herself that a party does not get. The members of the group can pool that money if they want. If a certain member of the Technical Group is reluctant to do so, that is unfortunate. The Technical Group can choose to set a stipend for common purposes at any level it likes from the significant amount of money that is available to each of its members. I invite the Deputy to consider that when a significant sum of State money is being provided in support of an individual Deputy, I have to be mindful that it could be used for a common purpose involving co-ordination in the House. Having said that, a case has been made for an additional person to do co-ordination and support work. That is a reasonable settlement in the current climate. Perhaps Deputy Murphy would like me to go further but there are others in the House who believe the members of the Technical Group are already doing very well on an individual basis. If they were to pool some of their money collectively, they could have quite a significant resource to use in the House. I acknowledge that the Technical Group is already a very effective force within the House.

See this speech in context