S.I. No. 888/2004 - Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Secretarial Facilities) (No. 5) Regulations 2004

The Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, in exercise of the powers conferred on it by section 2 (1)(c) of the Oireachtas (Allowances to Members) Act 1962 (inserted by section 3 of the Oireachtas (Miscellaneous Provisions) and Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices (Amendment) Act 1996 and transferred by section 4 (3)(b) of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Act 2003 ) and by section 10 (4) of the Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices Act 1938 (inserted by section 1 of the Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Act 2001 and transferred by section 4 (3)(a) of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Act 2003 ), hereby makes the following regulations:

1. (1) These Regulations may be cited as the Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Secretarial Facilities) (No. 5) Regulations 2004.

(2) These Regulations shall come into operation on 1 January 2005.

2. In these Regulations:

“Commission” means the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission established under the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Act 2003 ;

“Ministerial or Parliamentary Office” means the Taoiseach, Tánaiste, Minister of the Government, Minister of State, Chairman of Dáil Éireann, Chairman of Seanad Éireann, Deputy Chairman of Dáil Éireann, Deputy Chairman of Seanad Éireann or Leader of Seanad Éireann;

3. Subject to any other Regulations, each member of Dáil Éireann who is not the holder of Ministerial or Parliamentary Office shall be entitled to standard secretarial facilities consisting of three suites of equipment as defined in Schedule 1 Part I and either one secretarial assistant working full-time or such number of secretarial assistants working part time as are equivalent to one secretarial assistant working full-time, together with additional secretarial facilities consisting of the following:

(a) one higher parliamentary assistant working half-time, or

(b) one parliamentary assistant working full-time or such number of parliamentary assistants working part-time as are equivalent to one parliamentary assistant working full-time, or

(c) in exceptional cases, and subject to the prior consent of the Commission, one additional secretarial assistant working full-time;

provided that any member employing a higher parliamentary assistant working half-time pursuant to this Regulation must pool that resource with another member of Dáil Éireann such that each higher parliamentary assistant works half-time for each of two members;

and provided also that a member is entitled to such additional secretarial facilities only where he or she opts in writing, in such a manner and subject to such conditions as the Commission shall direct from time to time, to exercise this entitlement.

4. Each member of Seanad Éireann who is not the holder of Ministerial or Parliamentary Office shall be entitled to standard secretarial facilities consisting of two suites of equipment as defined in Schedule 1 Part I and either one secretarial assistant working half-time or such number of secretarial assistants working less than half-time as are equivalent to one secretarial assistant working half-time, together with additional secretarial facilities consisting of the following:

(a) one secretarial assistant working half-time or such number of secretarial assistants working less than half-time as are equivalent to one secretarial assistant working half-time, or

(b) one secretarial assistant working quarter-time;

provided that any person providing such additional secretarial facilities may be one and the same as the secretarial assistant providing standard secretarial facilities pursuant to this Regulation;

5. Each qualifying party shall be entitled to secretarial facilities consisting of employees to the extent determined by the Commission from time to time in accordance with Schedule 2, together with one or more suites of equipment specified in Schedule 1 Part I to the extent specified in Schedule 1 Part II in respect of each party and printing facilities to the extent specified in Schedule 1 Part II in respect of each party. Persons on unpaid leave, career breaks or secondment to other employment or employed as substitutes for persons providing secretarial facilities shall not be reckoned in the number of persons mentioned in column 1 of Schedule 2.

6. A person providing secretarial facilities shall provide those facilities for—

(a) a member of Dáil Éireann, in Leinster House, or in or nearby the member's constituency, or at or nearby the member's residence;

(b) a member of Seanad Éireann, in Leinster House, or at or nearby the member's residence;

in accordance with the wishes of the member or the party as the case may be;

and secretarial facilities consisting of equipment may be provided by the Commission for location outside Leinster House to the extent necessary to give effect to this Regulation.

7. The respective duties of persons employed pursuant to these Regulations shall be specified in their individual contracts in accordance with any guidelines which the Commission may lay down from time to time.

8. The following are revoked:

the Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Secretarial Facilities) Regulations 2003 ( S.I. No. 736 of 2003 ),

the Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Secretarial Facilities) Regulations 2004 ( S.I. No. 96 of 2004 ),

the Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Secretarial Facilities) (No. 2) Regulations 2004 ( S.I. No. 396 of 2004 ),

the Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Secretarial Facilities) (No. 3) Regulations 2004 ( S.I. No. 430 of 2004 ), and

the Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Secretarial Facilities) (No. 4) Regulations 2004 ( S.I. No. 688 of 2004 ).

Schedule 1

Regulation 3 , 4 and 5

Part I

A suite of equipment consists of the following equipment for use only by the Member or party concerned, as the case may be, or by persons employed or engaged pursuant to these [or other] Regulations to provide secretarial facilities to the Member or party, as the case may be:

— A stand-alone PC linked to the network of the Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas

— Access to a monochrome and colour printer

— An e-mail facility on oireachtas.ie

— Internet Access

— Microsoft Office

— Handsets (with connectivity, as appropriate, for local, national and international calls) — at Leinster House only

— Voicemail facilities — at Leinster House only

— Access to a fax machine

— Access to a television — at Leinster House only

— A shredder

— A Dictaphone

— A transcriber

Part II

Qualifying parties are to be provided with one or more suites of equipment as follows:

Number of members in Parliamentary Party	Number of suites of secretarial equipment
1 to 8 Members	1
9 to 16 Members	2
17 to 24 Members	3
25 to 32 Members	4
33 to 40 Members	5
41 to 48 Members	6
49 to 56 Members	7
Greater than 56 Members	8

and with printing facilities as follows:

• Fianna Fáil — 1 four colour print press;

• Fine Gael — 1 four colour print press;

• Progressive Democrats — annual budget for printing based on the aggregate sum of €5,079 per member of that party, to be vouched in such manner as the Commission may direct; and

• the other qualifying parties — 2 by 2 colour print presses.

Schedule 2

Regulation 5

The maximum numbers of persons permitted to be employed, for the purposes of providing secretarial facilities, by each qualifying party may be determined from time in writing by the Commission but shall not at any time be less than the following:

Party	Positions	Number of Persons
Fianna Fáil	Administrators Administrative Assistants Secretarial Assistants	2 8 0.5
Fine Gael	Administrators Administrative Assistants Secretarial Assistants	5 4.5 7
Labour	Administrators Administrative Assistants Secretarial Assistants	3 4 5.5
Progressive Democrats	Administrators Administrative Assistants Secretarial Assistants	1 1 1
Green Party	Administrators Administrative Assistants Secretarial Assistants	1 1 1
Sinn Fein	Administrators Administrative Assistants Secretarial Assistants	1 — 1.5
Socialist Party	—	—

provided that a qualifying party may employ a Chef de Cabinet, at a remuneration approved by the Minister on foregoing its entitlement to two employees listed above. A Chef de Cabinet may be paid on the scale applicable to a Principal Officer in the Civil Service or, in light of exceptional experience prior to appointment, the scale applicable to Principal Officer 1 in the Civil Service.

GIVEN under my Hand, this 23rd day of December, 2004.

DR. RORY O’HANLON,

Chairperson of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission.

EXPLANATORY NOTE.

(This note is not part of the Instrument and does not purport to be a legal interpretation.)

The purpose of these Regulations is to provide for secretarial facilities for members of Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann, other than holders of Ministerial or Parliamentary Office, and for qualifying parties. These Regulations revoke previous Regulations which dealt with a similar subjectmatter.