Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)

We will severely limit political donations and spending in elections and will regulate lobbying. We will restrict the right of civil servants, including political appointees, to take up positions in the private sector that might give rise to a conflict of interest. We will require heads of Bills to be published and debated in advance of final decisions taken on their structure and content.

We want major changes in the operations of Dáil Éireann. We propose that the Dáil meet four days a week in normal working hours. We also propose that the summer recess should be no longer than nine weeks, that the Christmas and Easter breaks should be no longer than normal working breaks and that the practice of a full week's holidays around St. Patrick's Day and Halloween be abandoned.

The net effect of our proposals will be to increase the number of plenary hours by one third each sitting week and the number of sitting weeks by half. We propose wide-ranging changes to the way the Dáil does its business when sitting. We believe Private Members' time should be extended and made available to all Members of the House so that Government Members and those in Opposition would be free to put forward legislation on areas of interest to them. We also propose that, ideally, such legislation should be debated and decided on a non-Whip basis, leaving Members of the House free to decide such issues on their merits. We advocate changes to the rules regarding legislation to ensure more democratic participation. We believe questions should be extended to allow written questions to the chief executive officers of public bodies given the ever increasing number of cases where Ministers no longer have official responsibility for them.

We believe the lawyer-client relationship between the Attorney General and Government, so often used as an excuse for refusing to explain why Ministers follow specific courses of action, should be re-interpreted to require a summary of the advice to be published in certain circumstances. We propose a significant expansion of the work of the Dáil on European and secondary legislation and call for much less restrictive and more informative televising, radio broadcasting and Internet streaming of the Dáil, including its committees.

The Dáil must play a major role in the carrying out of public inquiries.

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