Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I would like to join with other Members, as this may be my last opportunity to do so, to say a very sincere thank you to the staff of the Houses of the Oireachtas at all levels right throughout this complex. During my long time here, I have always found them to be extremely helpful, supportive and courteous to me. They are an essential part of our democracy and we simply could not function without their conscientious contribution to the successful operation of these Houses.

I want to concentrate on the Bill before us. I welcome the debate on the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission. However, it is deeply regrettable that this legislation is being rushed through the Oireachtas at the last minute without proper and robust parliamentary scrutiny. This Bill provides for a €565 million allocation to the commission over three years. That is over €100 million more than the previous allocation and represents a 22% increase. I accept that much of that has been as a result of improved pay and conditions, not least for the parliamentary staff because it was very much needed. The fact of the matter is that we have no real idea of how this money is to be spent over the next three years. There is no detail or no scrutiny of this at all. That is poor practice.

I accept that the Dáil will expand also in the situation after the next election and with that, obviously, there will be additional costs but those costs should be teased out and if Members of this House were given the opportunity to carry out their oversight role properly, we would not be having this situation. We would be enabled to do our job properly by both the Minister and his Department. We should not be railroading this Bill through the Dáil and Seanad.

We all know that this legislation needs to be passed before the current funding ends in December but we should never have been placed in this position. One would have to ask why is it that this is happening at the last minute.

Throughout the Thirty-third Dáil, we have seen this Government show a flagrant disregard for proper parliamentary processes. In 2022, the European Commission even criticised the Government for this stating, "discussions on new bills tend to be concentrated during short periods of time (in particular, during the two weeks before recesses), with negative consequences for proper parliamentary scrutiny". This is a case in point before us today. This has been especially bad during the past few weeks. A looming election is no excuse for this abuse of the legislative process and that is what it is.

In the aftermath of the bike shed debacle, it is particularly galling that this legislation is being rushed through. People were rightly outraged about this lavish spending. While the OPW does a lot of fine work, it needs to be far more concerned with value for money. This is public money and they should take proper care of it.

Questions also need to be asked about the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission and its level of oversight and engagement. It is all well and good to haul the OPW before the commission after the fact but why was the commission not more curious in 2021 when the plans changed? At that time the new option brought forward by the OPW was agreed by the commission without any costings being presented or discussed. Essentially a blank cheque was written and that is a serious failing. After all, this is public money we are dealing with and there needs to be proper care taken of it.

The oversight role of the Minister's Department in public spending leaves a lot to be desired. I have commented on a number of occasions that his Department seems to have forgotten the fact that the "R" in the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, DPER, stands for "reform" and we have seen precious little reform of spending by his Department. Indeed, I sometimes wonder what exactly is the role of DPER and why is it not combined back with the Department of Finance. After all, it was split for one purpose and one purpose only, which was to give an economic Ministry to a party in a coalition government and that practice has continued, unfortunately, since then. There should be a special unit to provide oversight of all public spending. That does not exist at the moment. The fact that we have the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee of Public Accounts is sometimes referred to but, again, that is after the event. Any major project that is being proposed that involves public money should be seriously scrutinised in advance of that. We do not have that kind of process at the moment to any serious extent.

On the subject of greater oversight, I would also like to take this opportunity to raise some related matters. It has come to my attention that there has been some abuse of the parliamentary privileges that Members enjoy here. For example, I want to raise the pre-paid post facility we have. That needs to be reviewed and the allocation is obviously no longer relevant to the extent that it had been previously because of the widespread use of email.

The other example of that is that there are certain examples where that freepost is being used for electoral purposes and that should never be the case. I have myself witnessed "Vote No. 1" leaflets going out in recent times in prepaid envelopes and that should not happen. Using pre-paid Oireachtas envelopes to campaign is clearly against the rules because it should be declared as an election expense. However, these rules continue to be flouted. This again is a misuse of public moneys and it must be tackled in a serious way if people are to have trust in politicians. It gives officeholders an unfair advantage in election campaigns and these unincurred costs should be repaid.

I read the annual report of the Oireachtas commission and the only reference to postal management seemed to be in respect of scrutiny. That is insufficient. There is a need for a thorough review of the use of that.

Another issue I would like to raise is that of access to Leinster House by former Members. I have raised this on a number of occasions in recent years. As I understand it, this protocol is under the purview of the commission and it needs urgent review. There would seem to be a revolving door between politics and private sector lobbying. We have seen umpteen examples of former Members of this House, Senators and Ministers, moving seamlessly from the political arena into the private sector in what are known as lobbying and public engagement companies, who are really lobbyists under a different name. Very significant ethical issues arise in circumstances like that. This practice of ex-Members involved in lobbying being facilitated by their perpetual access to the Leinster House complex needs to be tackled. It is not right.

This has allowed an insidious situation to develop whereby several former Ministers, Deputies and Senators move seamlessly between politics and lobbying. They use the privilege of admission to the complex to gain undue access to sitting Ministers and other influential Members of these Houses. This is especially the case with ex-government TDs and Ministers, who are frequently seen swanning around the corridors of this complex. In recent years, there have been several high-profile examples of TDs and Ministers moving between politics and public affairs or lobbying roles, and in some cases looking to move back into politics again. The Minister will be familiar with that. This is wrong. There needs to be a very clear demarcation between politics and lobbying. Access to Leinster House is a privilege that should not be taken away lightly, but once an ex-Member of this House becomes a lobbyist they should forfeit their right of access to it. It is really important this issue is taken up. I regret it was not taken up in a serious way in this Dáil, despite I and my party colleagues raising it several times. It brings politics into disrepute and I urge the Minister, and certainly his successor, to take this issue on because it is not doing anybody any service.

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