Joe O'Toole (Independent)

That is right – there is legal advice. When it comes to writing up the legislation and covering all the angles, though, it is much harder. Even among those of us who have been here a long time and understand the way things operate, I do not think anyone would feel competent to write a Bill from scratch – it would be impossible.

The relationship between this commission and the Committee on Procedure and Privileges is also important. Some of the roles of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges will move across to this new commission – if they do not, they should. A huge, artificial distinction has been made between procedures and services. The reason is very simple: the Department of Finance has not the slightest interest in procedures. The Department does not care what we do. It does have an interest in the services, however, because that is where the cheques go at the end of the day. This Bill is finance-driven in that sense.

Senator Mansergh referred to benchmarking and he was absolutely right – we must consider the Bill in that context. The whole benchmarking issue, however, developed out of partnership. The whole point of partnership was consultation and involvement in decision making. We are here putting legislation together, but the commission overseeing everything has no representation from the staff of the Houses. This goes against every speech made by the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance about the importance of people bringing their brains to work, giving support to management and having an input into decision making. It is appalling that there is no place on the commission for even one representative of the staff of the Houses. It cannot be right.