Statement of Estimates for the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission: Motion

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (Deputy Brendan Howlin)

I move:

That Dáil Éireann take note of the Statement of Estimates of moneys required in respect of ongoing expenditure for the period beginning on 1 January 2016 and ending on 31 December 2016, prepared and published by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission in accordance with section 13 of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Act 2003, as amended by section 8 of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission (Amendment) Act 2006 and section 9 of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission (Amendment) Act 2009, which was laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas on 2 July 2015.

Under section 5 of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Acts 2003-2013, the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission is funded on the basis of a three-year statutory cycle. Its current funding allocation of €324 million covers the period from 2013 to 2015. New legislation will be introduced at the end of 2015 to provide the commission with its funding for the next three-year cycle, 2016 to 2018. The commission is required under section 13 of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Acts to prepare and publish an annual statement of Estimates. The statement of Estimates before the Dáil for noting today is in respect of the estimated expenditure covering the period beginning on 1 January 2016 and ending on 31 December 2016.

It was normal in the past for this Estimates process to be undertaken in October of each year, but due to the fact that since 2013 the budget has been brought forward from December to October under the new European semester, it is now necessary for the commission to have the statement of Estimates noted by the Dáil before the House goes into recess in July. This is because, under the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Acts, the statement of Estimates of the commission must be furnished by the Secretary General to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform not later than 30 days before the presentation by the Minister to Dáil Éireann of the Estimates of the receipts and expenditure of that year.

Deputies will be aware that the Houses of the Oireachtas (Appointments to Certain Offices) Bill 2014, which is currently before the House, will allow for changes in this regard. It will delete the 30-day provision to allow time for the Houses of the Oireachtas Service to submit Estimates much closer to the budget, having had the opportunity to finalise figures in the September-October period, which will enable it to have a much more accurate assessment of expenditure trends before it has to submit a scheme of expenditure to the House for noting.

The Estimate amount required by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission for 2016 is €130.99 million. This is €18.7 million, or 16.6%, higher than the 2015 Estimate. The main reason for the 16% increase is the need to cover costs arising from the Dáil and Seanad elections which must take place by early next year. Election costs of €14.3 million have been included in the Estimate. When the election costs are removed, the underlying increase over the 2015 Estimate is €4.3 million, or 4%. This can be attributed to, among other things, an increase in the ICT project budget to account for a new parliamentary questions system, with which Deputies will be familiar, a new website, and new technologies in the Chamber, as well as an increased allocation for legal services and increased security measures. I commend this motion to the House.

Deputy Sean Fleming

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion. I was about to commend the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission for being so early with its Estimates.

Will the Minister even at this late date reconsider whether it is a good idea to move it back closer to October? I know he wants it closer to the budget, but what would be really good-----

Deputy Brendan Howlin

They complain it is too far away.

Deputy Sean Fleming

I understand it is early. Most businesses look at next year's budget at this time of the year and they do not leave it to the back end of the year. When I saw this Estimate coming through in advance of year end and next year I thought if only the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and other Departments could follow the example given by the Houses of the Oireachtas in coming forward with an early estimate of expenditure for the coming year it would be very good.

I wish to raise several particular issues. It will be popular to slag off politicians today, as people think there are votes to be got by running down the national Parliament. I for one do not ever believe the remarks of people in the Parliament who say they live on the minimum wage gross before tax. Their standard of living does not justify these remarks. They will say it, and some of their supporters will believe it, and it is a mantra.

Perhaps it is a little politically unpopular to say it, but I love giving facts now and again, and I looked at the total cost for next year of salaries for Members of Dáil Éireann, Chairmen of committees, travel and accommodation allowances for Deputies, the public representation allowance for Deputies and other allowances for Deputies and the same for Members of the Seanad, and out of the €131 million this comes to €30 million, which is 23% of the cost of the Oireachtas. Some people will have it that it costs €131 million to run the Oireachtas, when in fact only 23% of this goes to Deputies and Senators, and this includes running constituency offices and everything involved in it. It is quite a low proportion. Even if I add in the cost of the pensions of former Members it brings it up to approximately one third of the overall budget. The figure also includes salaries in respect of Members of the European Parliament. Payments to Deputies and politicians and the costs of running their constituencies and constituency offices represent approximately 25% of what we are speaking about. Some people would like to think it is an enormous figure, but 25% in respect of the Members with regard to running the overall business of the Oireachtas is not too severe.

I wish to refer to a number of specific issues. There is to be a massive increase in consultancy services and value for money and policy reviews next year, from €800,000 to €2.5 million. I would love to know why. The termination allowances in respect of former Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas is planned to be €3.388 million.

Deputy Brendan Howlin

They expect a lot of casualties.

Deputy Sean Fleming

I would love to know if the mandarins who worked out this figure knew precisely how many of us will not be here in the next Dáil and will receive these termination payments. Have they doodled around and put names on the figures? I am sure the figure did not come from nowhere. Perhaps it is the percentage of people who did not make it back into the previous Dáil.

Acting Chairman (Deputy Olivia Mitchell)

There is a high attrition rate.

Deputy Sean Fleming

Somebody in the system is not planning to see many of us after the next general election and making financial provision for it in the Estimate. It would be nice to know who came up. I would love to see the underlying schedule to see whether the Minister's name, my name or the names of the Deputies to my right are on it.

Deputy Brendan Howlin

Highly unlikely.

Deputy Sean Fleming

These are the issues I want to raise with regard to the two large items of expenditure. I would love to see more detail on the costs of the banking inquiry. I know it is not possible to achieve it in this short time. I would like to see more details on the cost of the parliamentary legal advisory service and I will write directly to the Ceann Comhairle on this matter. As a Deputy I am not happy with how the system works. The Ceann Comhairle can obtain legal advice from the service on discussing motions in the Chamber, and he will allow a debate depending on the legal advice. Various committees such as the Committee of Public Accounts and the banking inquiry are smothered with legal advice and are told what they can and cannot do, but when Members come here to vote in the Chamber on a Bill with possible constitutional implications no legal advice is available. Members of the Government have the advice of the Attorney General, but Members of the Parliament casting their votes are unable to receive individual legal advice. This service needs to be available to all Members and not just to the Ceann Comhairle and select committees.

Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh

Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil leis an Aire mar go raibh sé sásta glacadh leis an díospóireacht seo. Ní raibh mé ag iarraidh díospóireachta chun gearán a dhéanamh, ach chun a mheabhrú do dhaoine nach bhfuil gach uile pháirtí ar Choimisiún Thithe an Oireachtais. The minutes of the commission are available online, but this does not take away from the fact quite a portion of Deputies are not represented on it, which means one is not represented in the day to day running of the House. This is a criticism I have repeated since the commission was established. We should try as much as possible, without making it unwieldy, for the commission to be fully reflective, so all of the parties in the House, and that includes staff, play a role in ensuring the services the Houses of the Oireachtas give us day in day out are the best possible services.

We are in a different era to 50 years ago. Much more is expected of us as parliamentarians than would have been expected even ten years ago. The access the public now has to Deputies and Senators is much faster and much more demanding than when I was first elected in 2002. When I was first elected the majority of my correspondence was through letters and now it is through e-mail. E-mail, and social media in particular, demand much quicker responses. They also demand us to be much more transparent and open in our activities. We are a window into the Irish Parliament for the world. This includes Ireland and elsewhere. When I go back to my office I might have a text message or an e-mail from an Irish citizen in some far-flung part of the world who might pass comment, as people often do. It might not be about me, it might be that the Dáil looked very grubby today. It can be this mundane. People look in and expect us as a Parliament to carry out our work as parliamentarians but also expect us to have the facilities.

There is a cost involved and there are people, in particular sometimes the media, who can be overly critical of the cost of democracy. They do not know it sometimes, but it does cost. We have a figure for an Estimate, part of which I presume will include, or if not will definitely include next year, the cost of securing the building. We were told almost ten years ago that in the morning this building could fall down around us. I do not think the general public internationally would want it to fall down, unless some of us were in it perhaps, as that is the way some people look at it. There is a cost involved. It is an old building and it will cost money to fix it to ensure we carry out the work people sent us here to do in the first place. People need to remember they sent us here. They have a choice every number of years to send us back.

It is a useful mechanism that once a year the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission puts forward its annual budget and that it gets a cursory debate at the very least because it is a big sum of money. People need to remember it covers the cost of more than 400 staff and 226 Deputies and Senators, and the running of an old building which is inefficient and everything else that goes with it. I congratulate the work everybody has done in recent times to cut costs such as electricity. We need to spend more on modernising our facilities to ensure we can capture the new world out there through social media. This is not a criticism of the Houses of the Oireachtas PR team which does a lot. We all do much but we can do a lot more. I am not opposed to the budget. It reflects where we are today. Last year's annual accounts showed we underspent what was allocated, which in some way sets the agenda. We need modernised facilities, so if something is starting to creak at the seams we need to fix it.

Deputy Catherine Murphy

I will pick up on one of the points made by Deputy Ó Snodaigh regarding the make-up of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission. It is a significant issue, as the body is made up of Fine Gael, the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil, with Sinn Féin, the Technical Group and other Independents excluded. There may be a different set of priorities as a result. For example, in considering the Oireachtas committees, I believe there is a need to beef up the secretariat so it could do more meaningful work. That is an example of how there is not really an opportunity for us to make any kind of input into the process.

The Minister might recall the issue I have continuously raised regarding the Technical Group and the changing nature of its mandate. If opinion polls are to be believed, although we do not know, there could be a very different make-up to the Dáil next time but what has happened does not reflect that. I spent a long time going back and forth to the Minister's office trying to achieve some changes to a particular piece of legislation so a group recognised in Standing Orders, the Technical Group, could get a small number of staff resources to run the group. For example, the group is comparable in size to Fianna Fáil in the Dáil, which has in the order of 20 staff provided for the running of parliamentary activities. The Technical Group does not get anyone.

The Minister was quite helpful to me in writing a letter with which I went to the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission. That stated it was entirely within the power of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission to change or revise the regulations currently in place, within budgetary constraints placed upon it. It indicated that although the Technical Group is not a party and, therefore, cannot be allocated resources as if it was, the commission may, if it sees fit, make new regulations to allow for the specific provision of additional facilities to individual members or parties to comprise the Technical Group.

With a group of 17 or 18 Members, some managing is required, even to organise somebody to answer the phone or e-mails and ensure that people are allocated to committees, etc. This cannot be done otherwise. The Technical Group made an arrangement in which it became the private employer of two people, so this could be achieved. However, this should have been unnecessary as such a resource should have been provided. It will not be provided within this Dáil. It is absolutely wrong that a different approach is taken because of the mandate despite the fact that the citizen is sovereign and has the choice in sending people to this House. It is absolutely outrageous that the Technical Group can be so underprovided for. The Minister's helpful letter was sent to me on 1 April 2014 and I felt I was made a fool of in the run-around I got on this issue. The feedback from the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, which required much effort to get, was that the only way in which we could be provided with resources was if I, as the Technical Group Whip, was disabled. That is the kind of nonsensical approach that must be changed if we are to respect the mandate and its make-up now and in future.

I do not have a great deal of insight into how the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission works or where its priorities lie. Two thirds of the Opposition do not have input into it, which is a glaring democratic gap, given how essential are the facilities. It may well be that if there were contrarian views on the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, the money or resources would be allocated in an entirely different way. For example, there might be a much more powerful committee system if there were resources to do something that is now impossible because of the generous but limited resources available.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 7 Jul 2015