Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I strongly welcome debate on this sort of legislation. In truth we do not have enough proper debate in the House in terms of how the House itself should be structured. I have said from the beginning that I do not believe this is a matter that should be determined by the Executive: it is a matter for the House. One of the main thrusts of this legislation is for the Executive to withdraw, for example, the role of the Taoiseach in the nomination of the Clerk of the Dáil. It is being removed to make it exclusively a matter for the Houses of the Oireachtas.

We had some debate on Second and Committee Stages on these matters and we need to go over some of the ground again. Looking at Deputy Ross's first long amendment, the first two items of the section proposed by Deputy Ross would refer to the Secretary General of the Oireachtas service being the chief executive of the Oireachtas commission and being the officer accountable for the accounts of the commission for the purposes of the Comptroller and Auditor General Acts. This is the position as currently exists under the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Acts and will remain the position after the enactment of this Bill.

Deputy Ross is proposing to make a couple of changes and I will deal with those now.

6 o’clock

First, the Deputy suggests in his amendment that the Clerk of the Dáil would be appointed by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission following consultation by the Chairman of Dáil Éireann with leaders or designated leaders of groups of parties in either House of the Oireachtas who are not represented on the membership of the commission at that time. Second, the Deputy proposes that the Top Level Appointments Committee, TLAC, would nominate people for appointment in order of merit, to circumscribe the ability of the Chairman of the Dáil - the Ceann Comhairle - to choose whom, among candidates that are deemed suitable for the position, he might nominate to the commission for appointment. This would make the process beyond TLAC a rubber-stamping exercise. Although the formal appointment would be made by the commission on the nomination of the Ceann Comhairle, if there was a preferred candidate, the Ceann Comhairle's options in making a proposal, and the commission's options in determining a proposal, would be simply to accept or reject the preferred candidate. Obviously, that would be a very significant delimiting of the role of the Ceann Comhairle. I am willing to discuss that but I think it would be the wrong approach, and I will make a number of points in that regard.

In regard to the Deputy's point about a process that involves consultation with others, which we debated at some length on Committee Stage, I believe that all parties should have some involvement in this matter. My view is that this would be captured by their being represented on the commission, but that is not my business in terms of this legislation. The vagueness of a consultation process is, as the Deputy will know in his heart, meaningless. What does "consultation" mean? If it means calling people into a room and asking for their view, that would not have any legislative impact. It would simply mean that the matter went through a process. I would prefer if the commission were more broadly structured, but, as I said, that is not a matter that falls to be determined in this legislation. It is probably a matter that would properly be addressed at the beginning of the next Dáil, which is not too long away. I do not want to put into legislation a vagueness or inexactitude in terms of a process that requires a consultation that is fairly meaningless. The amendment provides that leaders or designated leaders be consulted. Are their views to have a meaning? Are they to have an overruling view or is it simply that somebody - in this instance, the Ceann Comhairle - is to have a consultation with them?

This is a fairly simple measure. As I have repeatedly said, it is a modest improvement, in my judgment, in the appointment system for the most senior administrator in the Houses of the Oireachtas. The objective is to open this up to open competition, with candidates from within and outside the public service invited to apply for the job, the criteria to be laid down in advance and TLAC to receive those applications, interview the candidates in its normal way and make its judgment. It is not normal procedure for TLAC to prioritise. As I have said previously, it provides a shortlist of suitable candidates. There have been occasions when, of all candidates, only one was deemed suitable. That would be a very short list. In the main, two or three candidates are presented to a Minister for appointment to, say, the role of Secretary General.

I know there is a purist view reflected in the Deputy's contributions to this House in terms of the role of any politician in doing anything. I happen to believe that people are elected to do things. Being elected gives one a mandate. It is not the mark of Cain that makes one unsuitable to make judgments or, to use a phrase I used on Committee Stage, discernments. The Deputy was critical of Ministers having a list of two or three candidates from which to choose, those candidates having been deemed suitable and appropriate by TLAC to serve in the office of Secretary General. The Deputy thinks Ministers should not have any leeway and that it should be a fait accompli that TLAC would make that judgment. Having had the privilege of leading three Departments, I do not agree with that. A Minister comes into a Department with an agenda. The most important aid in delivering the agenda that the Minister is elected to implement is the chief administrator of his Department, namely, the Secretary General. There will be times when people are not compatible. A Minister has to make a judgment in terms of compatibility. Often Ministers do not have that choice because there is an extant Secretary General, but where there is to be a new Secretary General, I think it is appropriate that some choice, in terms of the person who is to serve in the post, be available to a Minister. I know Deputy Ross disagrees with that, but I do not think it would be wrong. In fact, I think it would be the right course of action for the same choices to be available to the Ceann Comhairle. Currently, the Ceann Comhairle, with the Taoiseach, makes a choice from the pool of talent within the Houses of the Oireachtas. That is too narrow a pool. I believe there should be a much broader pool of talent available. This should include anybody who is interested in the job. Judgment in regard to whether a candidate is suitable for appointment to this important job should be made based on the information contained in his or her curriculum vitae, his or her experience and the skill set he or she may bring to the job. For those reasons, I do not accept the views expressed by Deputy Ross.

On the Deputy's point regarding a vote of the Dáil on the matter, I have examined what happens in other jurisdictions. In some jurisdictions Parliament votes on such matters. In my opinion, this politicises the position of chief administrator. I think it should be a professional appointment. The Dáil does not vote on the appointment of Secretaries General of Departments. In the American system, many appointments, including to the position of ambassador, are voted on by the Senate. That is its tradition. I do not think it is a particularly good tradition. I think that the independence of our Civil Service has been one of the great strengths of our Republic over its almost 100 years of existence. I do not believe that voting in the Dáil on a nomination will enhance that independence or that status. I think it would diminish it somewhat. That is my personal view on this matter. I do not agree with the line taken by the Deputy in that regard.

With regard to the other amendments in the group, I do not have a completely fixed view in relation to the other officerships that are encompassed by this legislation. I did ponder for a while on whether they should also be part of the TLAC process, but felt, on balance, that there needs to be flexibility within the Houses of the Oireachtas in respect of such appointments and that the redeployment of less senior staff than the Clerk of the Dáil should be done from within the Houses of the Oireachtas by the Ceann Comhairle in consultation with the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission. If appointment to the positions of Clerk Assistant of the Dáil and Clerk Assistant of the Seanad was by way of the TLAC process, this would tie people into fixed terms, with no flexibility thereafter for them to be redeployed to other areas to get different experience. It would also lessen the uniqueness of the two Houses of the Oireachtas. Although I have argued that there should be an open competition for the position of Clerk of the Dáil and chief executive of the commission, with the same person fulfilling both roles, I believe we need to preserve not only the status but the independence of each House.

That is why I want to give a role to the chairman of each House in determining staff appointments, subject to the formal decision-making role of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission. It is a better way of going about it than what we had before.

On the question of whether these provisions will be the last dealing with this issue, I hope they are not. I would like to see the new Dáil look afresh at all these matters, because we need to modernise the administration of the Houses generally. That is probably best done by an incoming Dáil rather than one in the last months of its term. It is important that when we have a vacancy for the Clerk of the Dáil, as there currently is, that it be filled in a more modern way than was the case in the past. As a result of the provisions in this Bill, the incoming Clerk of the Dáil will be appointed through an open and transparent process which will involve the endorsement of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission.

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