Plans for a major reform of the system for recording the attendance of TDs and Senators for clocking in and clocking out from Leinster House were quietly dropped despite requests from Minister Michael McGrath.
In a letter to the Oireachtas, Mr McGrath said the expenses checking system needed to be reformed as a “priority” with the possibility of smartphone apps, iris scanning, or facial recognition all to be considered.
In another piece of draft correspondence, the minister also queried whether TDs or Senators fobbing in once per day was enough to ensure that politicians were “actually in attendance” in Leinster House.
The discussions followed a series of controversies over the clock-in system which included ‘Votegate’ where some TDs were recorded as voting even though they were not in the Dáil chamber at the time.
Separately, the former Fine Gael TD Dara Murphy was able to claim his full €4,300-per-month travel and accommodation allowance despite having another full-time job in Brussels.
A public clamour for reform of the clock-in system in 2020 and 2021 led to the Oireachtas commissioning an outside expert to review how the system worked.
The Department of Public Expenditure had previously refused to release any records about the review, saying the matter remained under deliberation.
However, three years later, the only change ever made was the installation of cameras at locations where TDs and Senators clock in while there is still no obligation to clock out to obtain a full day’s attendance, even though it is counted towards payment of allowances that can be up to €34,000 every year.
In a letter in December 2020, Finance Minister Michael McGrath – who was then at the Department of Public Expenditure – said all options needed to be on the table to restore public faith in the Oireachtas.
He wrote: “Any change to the current system should lead to greater transparency [and] unequivocally verify the attendance of members in a manner which promotes public confidence.”
He said advances in technology could be used to create a much more robust system for checking if TDs and Senators were genuinely at work.
Mr McGrath wrote: “For example, many smartphones have either fingerprint or facial recognition security access mechanisms built in.”
He added: “The use of facial or iris identification may be preferable to fingerprint recognition given its contactless and non-invasive nature. This is something we have all become more conscious of during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
In a later draft letter, Mr McGrath said the existing system had “given rise to a perception that the expenses regime is open to abuse and this perception must be addressed as a matter of priority.”
In it, he called for a new transparent system that showed the “real attendance of members” and said that expecting people to clock in and clock out could not be considered “unduly onerous”.
The minister also suggested that the range of reasons TDs and Senators could use to later claim attendance if they had not fobbed in on a specific day should be examined.
“It is suggested that these should be more limited than they are at present and include an element to ensure that the member is in Leinster House for a reasonable period,” Mr McGrath.
“Again, this would support public confidence in the regime.”
Further submissions and correspondence on the topic have been withheld by the Department of Public Expenditure under Freedom of Information laws.
However, no major changes were ever introduced, and it is still the case that TDs and Senators only need to fob in once-per-day without any further checks.
The Department of Public Expenditure also released a heavily redacted review of the clock-in system, which was finalised in February 2021 but never published.
It involved looking at what other parliaments did, looking at the market for biometrics, and consultation with members of the Oireachtas.
The report said: “Facial identification or facial verification at the point of registration is most likely to give the highest level of public confidence.”
It said that “certainty of identity” should be the primary factor in any new system but that there was no system that was “100% fool proof”.
The report also said data protection concerns would need to be addressed but that a database of photographs of TDs and Senators was unlikely to be problematic given their pictures were already published on the Oireachtas website.
However, the final conclusions and recommendations in the report have been withheld on the basis it could “weaken the state’s bargaining position” if they did ever decide to go ahead with the plan.
A statement from the Department of Public Expenditure, which released the records, said: “The system for validation of Oireachtas attendance is a matter for the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission in the first instance.”