Darragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit go dtí an Teach. I thank the Leader of the House because earlier we requested that all Stages of the Bill not be taken today. I thank the Minister of State for deputising for the Minister, Deputy Howlin, this evening. I am not sure whether the script was changed in light of the amendments tabled. I will table an amendment on Committee Stage on behalf of Fianna Fáil and Senator Bradford has also tabled an amendment. We will deal with them on Committee Stage, which will be next week or after the recess.

I thank the Minister of State for outlining the Bill. I do not have a difficulty with most of the Bill. My main concern with it as it is constructed is with regard to section 1(4), which refers to the term of office of certain appointees. It states a person may be appointed to an office to which this section applies for a term specified by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission to be a period of a number of years or a number of years and months or days. In practice how will this work? The Clerk of the Seanad sits on the Standards in Public Office Commission, the Referendum Commission and the constituency boundary commission for Dáil elections. He or she also oversees the verification of nominations to the various Seanad panels and the Seanad elections. In my experience of the Seanad and Oireachtas over the past eight years, the office of the Clerk of the Dáil, the office of the Clerk of the Seanad and the offices of their assistants are very important to the functioning of the Houses themselves. They also have functions outside of the Houses.If the legislation is passed as it is, the commission will appoint someone for a period of five years or less. That would be an issue come a Seanad election, which is after a Dáil election, with the nomination procedures and everything that follows with such a complex election. The experience that office holds is crucially important to the running of this House of the Oireachtas, to the verification of nominations and to the holding of elections. That is one aspect of it. It concerns me, if it is in the gift of the commission to set a term, that if the officer is new to the Houses, he or she may not have after a five-year time the requisite experience to carry out those functions properly. That is a big issue for me.

If one thinks of the other roles with regard to the election, such as the nomination process - we had a kerfuffle last year with regard to nominations but I will not go into that again - it is crucially important that one has a strong individual who will not bend to pressure in that role. Having someone new to the process of looking at Seanad nominations and holding an election does not make any sense. That is why, in setting down in legislation a term, the Government is being prescriptive in saying one must set a term. I cannot see any commission stating the person has a term of 20 years. It looks as if one would set it, in the case of the post of Clerk Assistant of Dáil Éireann, the Office of the Clerk of Seanad Éireann and the Office of Clerk Assistant of Seanad Éireann, for a term of the Seanad or of the Dáil. My amendment would deal with those time limits. I am merely letting the Minister of State know my thinking in that regard.

The other element is the role that office has with regard to Standards in Public Office Commission, the Referendum Commission and the constituency boundaries. One needs someone experienced there as well. One will always have an experienced person at Clerk of the Dáil level because he or she will have come up through the system. He or she probably would come up through the Clerk Assistant of the Dáil post or would be in that office. What the Government is saying here is the appointment of the other officers can be made outside of that process, effectively, as the Minister of State said, outside TLAC. I understand that, and that is fair enough. However, if the term of someone in the position of Clerk Assistant or, for that matter, Clerk of the Seanad was up and the commission wanted to appoint someone else, where would he or she go? The Clerk of the Seanad is at the higher principal officer grade and the assistant is at the principal officer grade. It is a big problem and I would ask the Minister of State to bring this back to the Minister, Deputy Howlin. That, potentially, could be a really big issue.

A commission will not necessarily be made up of members who have been around a long time as it would depend on Dáil elections. Members of the commission could simply say that it makes sense to set a term of five years because the Bill states one should set a term but it makes no sense to me. The Minister does not need to set a term. If there was a difficulty with a Clerk of the Seanad or one of the other two roles to which I have referred, where a replacement was required, that could be done through the normal Civil Service process. If one sets a time limit, one will have to look to reappoint the person. How will that be dealt with? That was not covered by the Minister of State earlier. What happens when someone reaches the end of the term and he or she is doing a damn good job? Does the person go through the process again? Does he or she have to go before the commission again to be ratified? If the person had in some way, shape or form discommoded members of the commission or, as happens from time to time, did not get on with them, will the commission say it does not like the person in that role as he or she is causing it too much difficulty and is too independent, that it will not have that person there and will appoint someone else who may be more pliable? I am not saying that would happen but the Bill leaves it open for that to happen. That section is a major problem for me and for many other Senators, including Senators on the Government side. This must be looked at before Committee Stage.

The independence of the Seanad is set out in the Constitution. The Seanad, in whatever form, has been ratified by the people. It is a valid House of the Oireachtas. The main officer of the Seanad should not be subservient, by way of his or her term, to a commission or to a whim of any future Government, Ceann Comhairle or Taoiseach. That is a big problem and it needs to be changed. I would ask the Minister of State to go back to the Minister, Deputy Howlin, and ask him to remove the term. That is what my amendment will do on Committee Stage, and I intend to press it. Obviously, if the Minister brings in his own amendment to do that, we will support it and the Bill will go through without difficulty. If that is not changed, we will push our amendment on Committee Stage and we will oppose the Bill. Obviously, I am happy to let the Bill go through on Second Stage.

I would ask the Minister of State to have a think about this. He understands the process as do all of the Senators here. I hope I have made the point as to how it could be manipulated in future. I accept that is not the intention in the Bill. However, it needs to be changed and strengthened.

I have no idea when it is proposed to take Committee Stage. I would imagine it will be next week. I implore the Minister of State to raise this point with his Government colleagues. It is a serious point and we may regret this in the future, in five or ten years' time, maybe when the Minister of State is Taoiseach. This genuinely needs to be looked at as it is far too loose and could be abused.