Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I, too, welcome the Bill. I recognise we are operating a large parliamentary process. I am on the Oireachtas audit committee. We have intense scrutiny of all expenditure here. I acknowledge that group of people because many people do not know who they are. They include outside bodies and people who do that and work closely with Mr. Peter Finnegan, Clerk of the Dáil, in terms of the overall. They are an exercised group of people. We have external experts in that regard. The group audits the services of the Oireachtas, including security and IT. There are a whole load of arrangements. There are always going to be ongoing challenges. What is different here is that the Minister's proposal is for a three-year rolling budget. I understand the logic of that, and need for it. However, I will flag some issues.

I agree with Senator Gavan about the living wage.We must be proactive regarding all the contractors who work here. There are many of them. We are procuring their services but as part of this procurement we are not insisting on the terms and conditions of their employees. As a Parliament, we should have a greater say in and knowledge of this aspect. I have spoken to individual staff members, and I am not going to even refer to the type of service staff they are in case they could be identified, but they told me they have found it very difficult to negotiate with their employers, who have been very unreasonable. We build relationships with these people. They are walking our corridors, cleaning our offices and engaging in other aspects of our service. This is an important point. People should be on a living wage rate and I would like us to examine this issue.

This is about accountability. We know the great debate and arguments concerning the bicycle shed. That is only one example. Many comments have been made about these television screens that are all over the place. Many people's staff have told me they have had their phones taken out of their offices and they have been told they are going on MS Teams. No one wants to look into other people's eyes or meet around a table anymore. There needs to be greater consultation.

More importantly, concerning Oireachtas members, we put in place a commission. It is highly competitive to get onto it. The members of the commission get paid. I am on the audit committee and I do not get a screed nor a shilling for it, but the members of the commission are paid handsomely for their work. They fight among themselves to be on the commission. They are not great at transparency, however. In future, at the end of every meeting of the commission, I would like to see a formal communiqué issued to the members of these Houses regarding the decisions made, within. I understand that not everything can be made public and there are sensitive issues, but I would like a commitment in this regard. I will certainly be saying to anyone seeking to go onto the commission the next time that we must have greater accountability and transparency about what it does in our name and on behalf of our Parliament. A reasonable communiqué should be issued after every meeting of the commission to set out, where possible, practical communication. This is important. I thank the Minister.