Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On a more serious note, our secretarial staff have done a wonderful job. Like everybody else, we would like to see their conditions changed and their jobs upgraded. It is very good to hear the Minister say so much about those assistants in his address. I picked out four paragraphs at an early stage. He also spoke recently in the Dáil about the important growth of pay, which is included in this address as well.

The public will ask, on an ongoing basis, why it takes so much money to run the Houses of the Oireachtas. It is a significant amount. I will pick out one or two factors that the public sometimes might not understand. I am looking at a figure of 48,735 for parliamentary questions processed. It takes a lot of work-----