Houses of the Oireachtas Commission

The proper management of Oireachtas TV is ultimately the responsibility of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, a governing body body which oversees the delivery of services to the Houses of the Oireachtas, their Members and members of the public by the Houses of the Oireachtas Service

The Houses of the Oireachtas Commission has 11 members and is chaired by the Ceann Comhairle, who is chair of Dáil Éireann. Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission serve in a corporate capacity and do not represent their parties. The current members of the commission are as follows.

Deputy Seán Ó Fearghaíl

Ceann Comhairle

Chairperson of the Houses of the OIreachtas Commission

Seán Ó Fearghaíl is an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who has served as the Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann since March 2016. He has been a Teachta Dála for the Kildare South constituency since 2002. Ó Fearghaíl comes from a farming background and was a Senator for the Agricultural Panel from 2000 to 2002. He has also been a vocal supporter of Chinese government policy in the Dáil, and has reportedly praised their human rights record, and cautioned Teachta Dála’s (Member of Parliament) and Senators against acknowledging Taiwan as an independent state, as this could damage Ireland's diplomatic and business relations with China.

Senator Jerry Buttimer

Cathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann

Deputy chairperson of the Houses of the OIreachtas Commission

Jerry Buttimer is an Irish Fine Gael politician who has served as Cathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann since December 2022. He has served as a Senator for the Labour Panel since 2016. He served as Leas-Cathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann from July 2020 to August 2020, but resigned following his involvement in the Oireachtas Golf Society scandal ("golfgate"), in which Buttimer and 80 others attended a golf function and dinner in breach of government COVID-19 guidelines. He was Leader of the Seanad from 2016 to 2020 and Leader of Fine Gael in the Seanad from 2016 to 2020. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Cork South-Central constituency from 2011 to 2016. He was the first chair of Fine Gael LGBT. Following, Buttimer resigned as Leas-Cathaoirleach on 21 August 2020.

Mr. Peter Finnegan

Secretary General

Chief Executive of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission

Peter Finnegan joined the Houses of the Oireachtas Service in January 1997 and was appointed Clerk of the Dáil on 13 January 2016. He is responsible for Oireachtas Committees, Broadcasting and Communications, and Library and Research Services in the Houses of the Oireachtas. Peter previously served in the Department of the Taoiseach, Department of Education and Skills, Department of Finance, Department of Social Protection, and Office of Public Works.

Deputy Francis Noel Duffy

Minister’s representative

Francis Noel Duffy is the Green Party TD for Dublin South West , and former Councillor for Firhouse-Bohernabreena in South Dublin County Council. Francis is the Green Party Spokesperson for Housing. Before his election to Dáil Éireann, Francis was a lecturer at the Dublin School of Architecture, with a background in environmental science and sustainable building. He is married to the Green Party Deputy Leader and Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media Catherine Martin.

Senator Paddy Burke

Seanad Member

Paddy Burke is an Irish Fine Gael politician who has served as a Senator for the Agricultural Panel since 1993. He previously served as Cathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann from 2011 to 2016 and Leas-Cathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann from 2002 to 2011. Following his involvement in the Oireachtas Golf Society Scandal ("Golfgate") in August 2020, Burke was one of six senators who lost the party whip in the Senate as punishment for their actions. The party unanimously voted to restore the whip to Burke in January 2021.

Deputy Jennifer Murnane O’Connor

Dáil Member

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor is an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who has been a TD for the Carlow–Kilkenny constituency since the 2020 general election. She previously served as a Senator for the Labour Panel from 2016 from 2020. She is the daughter of former Carlow County Councillor Jimmy Murnane, who served on the local council for several years. She was co-opted to Carlow Urban District Council in 1999, following her father's retirement. She topped the polls for both the Urban and the County Council at the following elections.

Deputy Louise O’Reilly

Dáil Member

Louise O'Reilly is an Irish Sinn Féin politician who has been a Teachta Dála (Member of Parliament) for the Dublin Fingal constituency since the 2016 general election. O'Reilly describes herself as being "born a Republican Socialist" because of her families' involvement in trade unionism. Her grandfather was a shop steward for the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union while her grandmother did the same for the Irish Women Workers' Union. Her father Mick O’Reilly was also a trade union official, and was a member of the Connolly Youth Movement, the youth wing of the Communist Party of Ireland, before joining the Labour Party, to which the union he worked for was affiliated. O'Reilly worked as an organiser with the SIPTU trade union for a decade before her entrance into politics, and served for 10 years as a member of the Public Services Committee for the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU).

Senator Ned O’Sullivan

Seanad Member

Ned O'Sullivan is an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who has served as a Senator for the Labour Panel since July 2007. He was a member of Listowel Town Council from 1985 to 2007 and Kerry County Council from 1991 to 2007, and worked as a teacher at primary and secondary level in Dublin, Offaly and Kerry before taking over his family's menswear business in Listowel. In June 2011, it was revealed that 3,600 premium line votes from a phone in Leinster House at a cost of €2,600 to the Irish taxpayer helped Michael Healy-Rae win Celebrities Go Wild in 2007. O'Sullivan admitted making "around a dozen" calls and texts to support Healy-Rae after being asked to do so by Healy-Rae's campaign manager.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

Dáil Member

Jennifer Whitmore is an Irish Social Democrats politician who has been a Teachta Dála (Member of Parliament) for the Wicklow constituency since the 2020 general election. Whitmore has worked in both local and international ecology and environmentalism as well as with the Government of New South Wales, Australia. In 2015, she founded the East Wicklow Rivers Trust.She was elected to represent the Greystones local electoral area on the Wicklow County Council, following the 2014 local elections. In July 2015, she helped co-found the Social Democrats as a party and became the party's Spokesperson for Children.

Deputy Michael Ring

Dáil Member

Michael Ring is an Irish Fine Gael politician who has been a Teachta Dála (Member of Parliament) for the Mayo constituency since 1997, and previously from 1994 to 1997 for the Mayo West constituency. He served as Minister for Rural and Community Development from 2017 to 2020 and as a Minister of State from 2011 to 2017.

Senator Rónán Mullen

Seanad Member Rónán Mullen is an Irish senator and former delegate to the Council of Europe. He is the leader of the Human Dignity Alliance, an anti-abortion political party formed in 2018, and was an opponent of the same sex marriage referendum which took place in 2015. Mullen is a frequent media commentator on social and political topics. The first National University of Ireland senator appointed to the Council of Europe, he received international coverage for his role in defeating the controversial McCafferty Report which sought to limit the right to conscientious objection for medical staff in the case of abortions. He is a member of the European political party European Christian Political Movement and sits on the Board of Directors of CEIST (Catholic Education Irish Schools Trust) Ltd, a trust body for over 100 secondary schools around Ireland. He is also a member of the Corporate Board of Management of Daughters of Charity Community Services, an education and community development agency in Dublin's inner city.