This year it will cost some € 122m to finance the operations of the Houses of the Oireachtas, to pay the salaries of TDs, Senators and the staff at Leinster House, and to provide all the services and facilities that a modern parliament requires.
Few citizens, as taxpayers, will balk at paying the price, although some no doubt may question whether it represents value for money.
However a function of the Oireachtas Commission, an independent body set up three years ago, is to try to ensure that it does, by managing the operation of parliament in a cost-effective and efficient manner. The commission has now set itself a challenge for its next three-year term: it aims to make the national parliament a world-class parliament.
Although the Oireachtas is now better resourced and has acquired some of the features of a world-class parliament, notably better working conditions and greatly improved research facilities, not much else has changed. The scrutiny of the executive by the legislature still remains wholly inadequate. The performance of the Dáil in holding the Government to account falls well short of a world-class standard in parliamentary accountability.
The Oireachtas Commission, however, has no role either in deciding parliamentary business or reforming Dáil procedure. That is for others to determine, principally the government of the day. The Government sets the parliamentary agenda, orders the business of the Dáil and uses its parliamentary majority to enforce its will. That political mindset, which favours a strong executive and a weak parliament, is unlikely to change, whatever operational improvements the Oireachtas Commission may implement. At least not without a political miracle: a change of heart by politicians of all parties, but particularly the Government parties.
In opposition, all political parties favour parliamentary reform. In government, we have seen too many times - and again recently - that parties of power quickly have second thoughts about change. A feature of the Green Party's election manifesto was a commitment to reduce the number of ministers to 12, with a proportional reduction in the numbers of ministers of state. Of course, were that to happen, most likely the Greens would not have secured a second post in Cabinet, while the party might have struggled even to secure one junior ministerial appointment from among the 14 they favoured, as against the 20 that were finally established.
The number of junior ministers expands inexorably to meet the political needs of the parties in government: seven in 1977, three times that number today, and with absurd consequences. The resulting sub-division of junior ministerial labour now sees one department (Education) with five junior ministers and another (Health) with four. The Oireachtas Commission's aim to achieve a world-class parliament is admirable. But it will only become meaningful when all the Oireachtas members, not some, are ready to make the procedural and other parliamentary reforms necessary to achieve it.