People of the Debates Office

The early years

Since 1922, the Official Report produced by the Debates Office has been the work of parliamentary reporters, editors, administrative staff and, in earlier times, audio typists who took dictation from the reporters.

In 1922, Michael Knightly, a newspaper reporter, veteran of 1916 and an official of Dáil Éireann who had reported the Treaty debates, was asked by the Clerk of the Dáil, Colm Ó Murchadha, to recruit the staff who would produce the Official Report of the Dáil. Recruitment was informal and initially a team of eight reporters, all male, was assembled. Mr. Knightly himself was appointed the first Editor of Debates. All the reporters recruited had been newspaper journalists, two of whom, William J. Flynn and Martin Cleere, had experience of working in the House of Commons. Flynn had assisted in recording the Treaty debates and joined the official staff when the office was established in 1922. He also compiled a number of annual parliamentary companions called the Irish Parliamentary Handbook between 1932 and 1945.

After the Civil War ended, the office was put on a permanent footing and, in 1924, a report of the Dáil Standing Committee on Oireachtas Staff noted that in addition to the Editor of Debates and an assistant editor, 12 reporters were employed to cover the debates of the Dáil, Seanad and occasional Oireachtas committees.

Changing recruitment practices and the first female recruits

“Is it not an extraordinary thing that 33 per cent, of the Oireachtas reporting staff, as I suggest, died as a result of overwork during the last 12 months?”

Deputy Richard Anthony, 9 June 1932

The deaths of four reporters over a 12-month period in 1931 and 1932 led to a new recruitment drive, which for the first time was taken on by the Civil Service Commission. Initially, Robert Kelly, who was to become Editor in 1963, was recruited in April 1932 but a shortage of suitable candidates resulted in the commission re-advertising for reporters later in the year, when it sought applicants with shorthand and reporting experience. While this meant reporting would no longer be the exclusive preserve of journalists, the terms of employment also would involve additional work. In addition, the salary had been cut from a starting rate of £275 in 1924 to a new annual salary of £250 for men and £190 for women. This development caused the unions representing the reporters to complain strongly about the “deliberate attempt to introduce cheap labour”. Objections also were raised in the Dáil, where the often gruelling nature of the job was noted and it was suggested “you cannot get women reporters to do the job now done by male reporters who have broken down under the strain”.

The 1940s to today

Since its establishment, the core personnel of the Debates Office had remained remarkably stable and as late as the mid-1950s, five of the original eight reporters recruited were still working in Leinster House, namely, Mr. Knightly himself, Charlie Fallon, Paddy O’Donnell and Tom and Martin Cleere. The 1950s saw a changing of the guard, however, as the original team began to retire, including Mr. Knightly in 1955. Many of the new recruits, such as Éamon Ó Faoláin, Ned Symes and John Ward, still came from a newspaper background but the number of female reporters, such as Pat Tierney, began to increase, rising from four in 1955 to half the reporting staff in 1965. Another development to alter further the gender balance of the Debates Office took place in the early 1960s, when it was assigned its own typists, all of whom were women. The custom previously on sitting days had been to send five typists to the office from the Oireachtas typing pool to take dictation from the reporters. The trend accelerated on the lifting of the “marriage ban” in 1973 and remarkably, by 1982 the roster book shows that 14 of the 19 members of the reporting staff were women. In 1986, Pat Tierney became the first female Editor of Debates and Chief Reporter, a job that now has been held by four women.

Heavy workload and long hours

Over the decades, recruitment proved a perennial problem, not least because of the long hours on sitting days, with relatively low pay making the job less attractive by comparison with newspaper work, although many parliamentary reporters managed to do both. In May 1947, for example, the future Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave raised “the shortage of reporting staff” in the Dáil and noted how, on days when both Houses were sitting, there were not enough of them to report the debates of both, as well as meetings of the Committee of Public Accounts. He went on to mention the unattractive salaries, how reporters “can get better jobs outside” and how the long and uncertain hours made the Oireachtas an unattractive place in which to work.

Similarly, when making a case for improved conditions in 1965, the reporters mentioned how “night work … has the effect of making them social outcasts” but also pointed out how the pay and conditions in Westminster and Stormont were better than in the Oireachtas. The task of finding qualified suitable candidates was made more challenging because the office also needed people who could report in Irish.

One temporary solution was to allow reporters to keep working after they had reached retirement age and an internal memorandum from 1953 notes “the establishment has been retained at full strength only by the retention of the Messrs. Cleere beyond the age of 65”. In the 1960s and 1970s, retired staff, including former Editors like Robert Kelly, often had to be brought in to help, particularly as the volume of work increased in tandem with the number of committee sittings. The Seanad, which also began to sit more regularly from the 1970s onwards, had its debates reported by retired staff, trainees and audio typists.

Since the use of shorthand came to an end, reporters continue to be recruited by open competition through the Public Appointments Service, in which candidates are required to sit an examination and an interview, with the option of an additional examination through Irish. On-the-job training, including on parliamentary procedure and the house style, is given, along with typing courses, where required. Today’s recruits are trained by a training officer drawn from the ranks of the assistant editors. The first day reporting in the Dáil Chamber is always a momentous occasion for a new recruit.