The trade union representing personal assistants to Oireachtas members and other Leinster House staff has warned that it will not accept the proposed new tier of staff in the Oireachtas unless its members are in a position to obtain the posts.
Mr Gerry Flanagan, of the State and Related Branch of SIPTU, said yesterday that he understood it was now proposed to give each Dáil deputy a new personal assistant/administrator, as well as their existing special assistants. This new job would be at a higher grade than the existing assistants, and "we can't accept people being parachuted into these jobs".
"We expect them to be recruited from those currently doing the work."
He said he welcomed news that staffing at the Houses of the Oireachtas was to be expanded, and did not necessarily expect any difficulties.
But he was "marking people's cards" that the existing staff should not be passed over.
The Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, which is now in charge of running the Oireachtas, is to meet next Thursday. The Department of Finance has not yet formally signed off on the funding for the new staff, but it is expected to be included in the spending estimates for 2005.
A member of the Oireachtas commission, Labour deputy Mr Brendan Howlin, said yesterday that the Oireachtas had "failed miserably" to hold the Government to account. "The proof of that had been the plethora of investigations and tribunals that have been required to do after-the-event scrutiny.
"If we had a system to ensure all decisions in terms of legislation and decisions of government were properly analysed by parliament, I think we would have saved an awful lot of money in recent times, and that is what we are trying to put in place."
He said outside consultants Deloitte and Touche had concluded that "virtually under every heading, the Irish parliament was under-resourced".
He said there was not really a structure to allow Oireachtas members to deal with a growing number of sophisticated submissions on legislation from pressure groups and outside bodies.