Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. The contributions of Members so far will have given him food for thought.

This is a sloppy Bill. It does not address key issues. I am thinking in terms of people outside these Houses who might be contemplating applying for the position of Clerk of the Dáil. There are no guarantees in the Bill. There is no indication of how long it will be for or the terms and conditions.

Senator Craughwell made reference to a trade union background. I am sure the trade union movement would have a particular view of this Bill if it were happening in another part of the public sector. Those in the private sector might have a view on this as well.

The other aspect that concerns me is the independence of the appointments, notwithstanding that the TLAC will be concerned with the appointment of the Clerk of the Dáil. I am always curious to know why, in the drafting of legislation like this, a distinction seems to be made between the Dáil and the Seanad in terms of its principal officers. I do not want to embarrass anybody present but I do not see why the role of the principal officer in the Seanad should be in any way inferior to that of the principal officer in the Dáil. As Senator O'Brien said, we are both Houses of Parliament, and we probably have an even stronger mandate for our continuing existence because the public gave it to us.

I am also concerned that the appointment of the Clerk of the Seanad, the Assistant Clerk of the Seanad and the Assistant Clerk of the Dáil would fall to the commission. The commission is a political body. It is appointed following an election and has an inbuilt Government majority. The Ceann Comhairle is almost certainly a Government representative unless the mathematics in the Dáil suggest otherwise, as has happened on one or two occasions, but, generally speaking, the position of Ceann Comhairle comes from the combined strength of the Government majority. It does raise issues of independence and as Senator O'Brien correctly said, what if the decisions being taken by the Clerk of the Seanad or the Assistant Clerk of the Seanad did not square with the views of the commission? To put it another way, one of the most important roles the Clerk of the Seanad has is that they sit on the Constituency Commission, whose members must be seen to be absolutely independent and have integrity, and there is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest otherwise. However, somebody somewhere might dig into the past of the person appointed and find, as is human, that they have a political affiliation or a political inclination, and all of a sudden questions are being raised to the effect that this person is now sitting on the Constituency Commission and was appointed by a commission that has a majority of Government members, endorsed by the Ceann Comhairle, who is a former member of the same party. There are wheels within wheels. We only have to consider the way the social media has gone here, and the way the media takes up an issue, blows it out of all proportion and creates a perception in the public mind that probably is far removed from reality; it just happens. That is my only concern about the process of the appointments, notwithstanding what all of us have been saying about the terms and conditions of the appointment and its tenure.

I do not want to give the impression that I am putting forward a conspiracy theory.