asked the Minister for Finance if he will give the name of the London agency from which official reporters were recruited in January/ February, 1971.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Oireachtas Reporting Services.
12.
The name of the agency is the Palantype Organisation Ltd.
13.
asked the Minister for Finance if applications were sought for the post of official reporter in January, 1971; how many applied; and how many were found to be qualified.
Reporters in the Houses of the Oireachtas comprise two categories: established permanently-employed officers recruited by means of Civil Service Commission competition and casually-employed fee-paid reporters. As no competition was held in January, 1971 for the recruitment of established Reporters, I presume the question refers to the latter category.
The selection of casually-employed reporters is entirely a matter for the Ceann Comhairle. He has informed me that a rota has been prepared of persons suitable and willing to do casual reporting work; that one of them is at present employed; and that the two remaining persons on the rota have indicated, when asked, that they were not currently available. In addition, the services of a former Editor of Debates and Assistant Editor of Debates have been obtained.
Would the Minister be able to say when the rota list was revised?
I do not think I have that information available to me. As I have indicated, the selection of such casually-employed reporters is entirely a matter for the Ceann Comhairle and not for me.
I do not want to cast any reflection on the Chair, and the Chair will appreciate that, but I am quite sure that the Minister could answer the question of whether or not any effort was made to recruit Irish staff for this particular job on a temporary basis, even at a very much less rate than that being paid to this personnel from London. Would the Minister not agree that the whole trouble in this case has been caused by the fact that the Seanad was sitting along with the Dáil and the Public Accounts Committee and that it was a peculiar type of arrangement that the Seanad should be asked to sit knowing that it was going to leave a shortage of staff, particularly as they only met four days since 31st July, 1970.
No. As regards the first part of the Deputy's question, the information available to me is that efforts were made to recruit people from here and they were unsuccessful. As regards the second part of the question, I am not sure if I understand correctly what he is getting at but in view of the fact that there was business for the Seanad to do, and in particular that there were many complaints about the lack of business for the Seanad in the previous session, I would be surprised if the Deputy is now saying that the Seanad should not have been engaged on the work on which it has been engaged because of the activities of the Committee of Public Accounts.
Of course, the Seanad has been introducing Bills, something which it has not done before, except once or twice; we know that. Would the Minister not agree that no effort was made to recruit available staff to do the work for which the English personnel were brought over? I am not saying one thing against the personnel who are doing a good job, I am told, but what I am saying is that it is a damn shame that with all the people who are unemployed in this city you could not get somebody to do this reporting when reporters were required and that you had to send across to an agency in Britain.
I have already said that the information available to me is that efforts, and strenuous efforts, were made to recruit people suitably qualified but they were not successful. I do not think that the Deputy should try to——
It is very hard to accept that.
Question No. 14.
What standards were necessary to make them successful?
175 words a minute.
180 words a minute is one of the requirements.
Is it possible that we had not got people in Ireland who can give us 180 words a minute?
(Interruptions.)
That is slow enough. It is slow enough for Deputy Garret FitzGerald.
The Minister should have another look at it.