Tom Parlon (Laois-Offaly, Progressive Democrats)

The office will serve two Houses but will have more than three prongs. Each House has a Clerk and assistant Clerk and the joint staff has its own tribe of heads of functions dealing with different aspects of the service it provides. This group also has its chief, who does not have a related title, but also happens to be the Clerk of the Dáil. It is the work already undertaken by the Clerk and under his control which will move in its entirety to the commission. As Clerk of the Dáil he will remain under the jurisdiction of the Ceann Comhairle and, similarly, the Clerk of this House will continue to perform her functions unaffected.

The other new capacity of the Clerk of the Dáil will be as chief executive officer of a collective called "the Commission". Senators expressed the high regard in which they hold the current incumbent. I do not envisage that the Clerk of the Dáil in this new position will become a kind of insider trader on behalf of the Dáil, trying to do down the interests of the Seanad. Nor do I envisage that the commission, which will be his boss, would allow him to do such a thing. He will be the chief executive officer of a ten person commission consisting of Members of both Houses, which would not allow him to do down either House.

Senator Ryan raised the possibility that the Clerk of the Dáil would be beholden to the commission. This is a white elephant which will not arise. The commission will have no function to override the constitutional requirements of either House. In other words, the Seanad, like the other House, will be in charge of its constitutional rights, whereas the commission will take control of the administration of the various other tasks of the Houses. Nothing will impinge on or impugn the constitutional rights of the Clerks of either House.