Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is being more than a tad mischievous in how he has presented this. He knows full well that I intend to include public servants in the legislation. I explained in some detail on Committee Stage that I would do this in a different format. I am prescriptive as regards Ministers, Deputies and members of local authorities because they are a discrete, finite group.

In terms of which public officials should be captured, the Deputy even agreed that there would be more than one wave as we progress. Rather than including certain officials in primary law and, by definition, others that should not, section 6 refers to "public servants of a prescribed description". As I have already told the Deputy, I intend prescribing from the outset Secretaries General, assistant secretaries general and CEOs of local authorities. They will be captured from the beginning. Within 12 months, it is my intention to extend this provision to principal officers, but there might be other categories or designations that we will have to consider. My approach is simply to have an enabling power in respect of the prescribed categories. I am open to hearing the case for capturing any category.

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However, if we state in primary law that these are the only categories, we are saying that nobody else should be captured under these provisions other than those particular categories. That is a fundamental mistake because there will be categories of public servants that should be subject to this legislation but which are not on the list put forward by the Deputy opposite.

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