Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is an explicit provision of the Good Friday Agreement and that did not happen today or yesterday. It happened in 1998. There are people now at work and voting who have lived their whole lives in a post-Good Friday Agreement Ireland - thank God - and that is a great credit to all concerned. The idea that we are moving with excessive haste, frankly, does not stack up at all.

I turn to the issue of the office of the Tánaiste, which will be established within the Taoiseach's office, and of an office for the leader of the Green Party. Am I right in understanding that the Fine Gael and Green Party leaders will have ministerial advisers, press officers and an aide-de-camp in the case of the Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar? That is strange and the Taoiseach might explain the precedent for it. Moreover, the Tánaiste and the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, will each have an additional team of staff, including a private office, a policy and programme implementation unit and a deputy Government press secretary. Will the Taoiseach explain and clarify for the House what additional resources the office of the Tánaiste and the new office for the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, will have and where they will come from? Are they new resources or are they redeployments and what is it going to cost?

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