Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. Having been a practising Deputy for more than 15 years, I have a deep appreciation of the work of our secretarial assistants. An independent review was carried out on the secretarial assistant grade at the request of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission. It has been completed and in the past few days has been sent to my Department, having been considered by the commission. Under the 2003 Act, it falls to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to give consent or not to a proposal of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission. I received the report only in the past few days. I have not yet read it but I am sure it will be made available to me by my officials as soon as they have carried out an initial assessment of it. I certainly will not delay. Once I have full sight of the report and have considered its implications, I will give a decision within a very short period.

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