Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move recommendation No. 1:

1. In page 3, between lines 23 and 24, to insert the following:

“Report on engagement with the Commission

2.The Minister shall, within 6 months of the passing of this Act, lay a report before both Houses of the Oireachtas outlining—

(a) engagement the Minister has had with the Commission with regard to remuneration for those employed under the Scheme for Secretarial Assistance,

(b) any recommendations from the Commission with regard to remuneration for those employed under the Scheme for Secretarial Assistance, and

(c) any actions the Minister proposes to take with regard to remuneration for those employed under the Scheme for Secretarial Assistance.”.

I will go backwards and speak to recommendations Nos. 2 and 3 first, which speak to the problem, and then to recommendation No. 1, where I hope the solution will lie.

The Minister has heard the passion in the other House on this issue. It is not only echoed but amplified in this House, where each Member is entitled to a secretarial assistant, SA, not a parliamentary assistant, PA. The secretarial assistants who work with us do extraordinary work. The detail of the work they do has been outlined in surveys carried out by the Oireachtas human resources, HR, section in the previous Oireachtas. It involves doing research, speech writing and producing newsletters and briefing material on legislation and for committees. It is important to add that half of the legislative work in the Houses of the Oireachtas take pace in this House.

Not only do our secretarial assistants support us in our work but if people phone about legislation or policy, they need to be able to answer the phone. They are not, as may have been thought in the past, sending out missives newsletters at a genteel pace. They are dealing with the cut and thrust of legislation to an extraordinary degree and the incredibly important work we do. The level of remuneration they receive for doing this is disgracefully low. It starts at €24,423 and it takes 18 years to move up the secretarial assistant scale to the top point. Very few will last that long. As a result, we lose their institutional knowledge, expertise, experience and insight and the relationships that are built up through secretarial assistants and their work.

Recommendation No. 3 relates to the recruitment and retention of staff. As somebody who values workers’ rights and is very passionate about them, I find it difficult to be placed in a position of being an employer who offers a contract of employment, as I am required to do, that does not fully reflect the work I am asking people do for me. The pay scale I mentioned does not allow for recognition of much experience or qualifications. If someone has extraordinarily relevant experience that strengthens my work in committees or a degree or postgraduate qualification, I cannot give recognition of that, nor can I recognise the first three years of any other work that person may have done. To take work experience as an example, I have had secretarial assistants who have worked at the European Court of Human Rights, ECHR. That is worth nothing.

I give these examples from the recruitment perspective because people are surprised. Members of our group have had extraordinarily excellent candidates who have been unable to take a role because it does not recognise their experience or encourage the development of skills within the role because acquiring extra qualifications and so on are not worth anything.

On staff retention, staff who are passionate and care about their Members' work have nowhere to go because there is no parliamentary assistant role in the Seanad. We are in a position where we cannot retain staff. That acquired knowledge and experience is then lost from the legislative process.

I have spoken from the perspective of why this is important for Senators and the legislative process. However, it is also important in regard to the standards we seek to promote and hold ourselves to in the Oireachtas. For example, we have spoken about having a family-friendly Oireachtas and the idea of having an equitable pipeline that encourages a diversity of people to come forward and engage in politics. For many, a secretarial assistant role will be the moment they first engage in politics. I had the experience of a previous secretarial assistant, Janet Horner, going on to become a councillor for a different party, and very good she is as well. That is a pipeline but it is not available for many people. We should not be in a situation where a secretarial assistant decides to move into another area or sector because he or she has the responsibility of a family and can no longer afford to do this work.

There has been a lengthy process on this issue. SIPTU, which represents the secretarial assistants, and the secretarial assistances themselves have done huge work on it. I commend in particular my secretarial assistant, Sárán Fogarty, who does extraordinary work for me and supports me in the four committees of which I am a member and my multiple areas of legislative interest. She has played a key role in that process.

Recommendation No. 2 is comparative in that it asks that we look at what is happening in other parliaments. I do not believe there is an equivalent system in many other parliaments where members of one of the two houses in a bicameral system would have only one secretarial assistant. This affects the quality of legislation. European directives land into different countries and go through different processes. We should have support and resources. I should mention that I was a member of the Seanad reform committee established in the previous Oireachtas. One of its recommendations was that this matter be addressed.It was considered a key aspect of Seanad reform and ensuring the House performs properly.

I finish with what I hope might be the area of solution, as proposed in recommendation No. 1. This recommendation asks that the Minister report on his engagement with the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission. I understand Senator Craughwell engaged with the Minister last week on this matter. The Minister spoke in this House and in the Dáil about the role of the commission in bringing proposals for his consideration and agreement. I would like him to spell out what that involves, because we have had some mixed messages about what the role of the commission is or is not, and likewise the roles of the human resources unit and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Is it the case, for example, that if a conciliation meeting goes ahead, as I understand is due to happen in late January or early February, and human resources personnel meet with union representatives at that meeting and have their discussions, the human resources department will then be able to report back to the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission and the latter will be in a position to make proposals to the Minister in respect of this matter and how it believes it should be resolved? The Minister stated in this House: "The commission makes a proposal to me, as Minister, on issues such as grading, salary rates and so on, and I then make a decision on that proposal". I want this point to be clear. Is it the case that members of the commission can make such a proposal to the Minister? There has been some ambiguity around whether it will be the human resources department reporting back and forth directly to the Department. As I understand it, that department reports to the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission. Who will be making such proposals to the Minister?

The other question we are looking to relates to what actions the Minister might be planning to take. Of course, he has not yet received any proposals from the commission but I would like to know what actions he is inclined to take in respect of the very reasonable proposals that have been put forward by the secretarial assistants and SIPTU, should those proposals come to the Minister from the members of the commission. I ask him to be really clear on that process because it will be fundamental to our achieving a resolution in this matter, as everyone hopes to do, very early in the new year.