Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

I very much welcome the opportunity to make some preliminary remarks on the committee system, which remarks are but a small part of the debate we desperately need to have on parliamentary reform. The amount of time allocated for this debate, while welcome as a beginning, is totally insufficient to address the crisis of parliamentarism with which we are dealing. In this regard, when I consider my reflections on the literature that has been written on parliamentary reform since I first became a Member of the Oireachtas in 1973, I note that nearly every single article refers to the evolution of the committee system as a vital part of parliamentary reform. This is an issue to which I will return.

I will justify my remarks by saying that there is a decline in parliamentary power in parliaments in Europe generally and in those across the world. This raises a considerable issue. In some respects, one is tempted to describe some parliamentary processes as a managed illusion; however, it is an illusion without which we could not live. We need to see, at least in formal shape, the possibility of democracy and accountability, but we do not get that.

In the time allocated to me, I can say but a few words on this matter. I am in favour of change but do not necessarily agree that all changes have been automatically good. When I first became a Member of the Dáil there were distinguished contributions that were capable of teasing out legislation and dealing with issues comprehensively, sometimes not limited by time. The confinement of speeches to 20 minutes and the sharing of time by Members, combined with the arrival of press offices, meant that small, inefficient and partially cut and pasted regurgitations of the Minister's speech and the main spokesperson's speech on the Opposition side served as a substitute for what was previously vital political rhetoric. I use the term "rhetoric" in the Greek sense, that is, the important sense of dealing with substantial issues.

I cannot address all these issues because of the time limitations imposed on me today and I hope the Chief Whip, who is a generous man, will want to return to the Dáil and offer a full day, for example, to address more fundamental parliamentary reform. In the meantime, he may encourage members of the media, none of whom is present, to turn up.

Let me address some of the more specific points. Speaking as one who worked as a political scientist for a very long time, I do not have to waste my time issuing a whole lot of caveats. Nothing I have to say is a reflection on any particular person or the staff of the House, whose duties and dedication I, like everybody else, appreciate deeply. However, an issue of accountability arises in respect of the relationships of the public, through elections, to Parliament, of Parliament to the Executive, and of both the Parliament and Executive to the public in terms of policy.

Let me give an example of the extreme position that now obtains in respect of accountability, bearing in mind the powers given to a range of unaccountable quangos and semi-State bodies. This transfer of powers goes against the advice of a former Attorney General, who, while speaking in a private capacity to the UCD Law Society, suggested that Ministers, under the Constitution, should give to any body acting in the name of the people a policy envelope, which policy would remain accountable in the Parliament.

I asked a question of the Minister for Transport, Deputy Noel Dempsey, who, as I understood from the Minister of State's speech, was a glowing advocate of the committee system. I asked the Minister for Transport, who had answered a previous question that acknowledged the social role of CIE, the procedures by which CIE has calculated such assets it considers surplus to public transport requirements in general, and the procedures that were used to establish the regional integrated public transport needs that might be served at Ceannt Station in Galway city in view of the public interest in the policy issues that arise. It was a policy issue to say that CIE would have to sell its property to install the extra platform rather than that it be provided under the national development plan through Transport 21. The Minister's reply stated: "This is a day-to-day operational matter for CIE and not one in which I have any role".

I refer the House to Question No. 301 of Tuesday, 9 October 2007, ref: 22426/07. One must place this alongside the suggestion that the Government has no responsibility in regard to Aer Lingus or the implications and fallout of HSE actions on health. A gulf is opening up between the genuine concerns of the public, the policy division that has emerged between Parliament, the Executive through the Cabinet and Ministers with delegated responsibilities under the Constitution, and these quangos that are unaccountable.

I want to address some specific issues but, as I have said, I can only glance at them. I would like to have been back in the time of the late Professor John Maurice Kelly and others and I could have discussed the question of democracy and parliament. I am a pessimist about what is happening. While I welcome the technical innovations and capacities and facilities being provided in this House, there is a serious ideological error happening in that there is an assumption that one can substitute technical improvements for fundamental debate concerning what parliament should be about. I will come back to this in a moment, lest I run out of time.

I have given examples across other Departments in regard to transport and health. The National Roads Authority is the same. I could give an example from the area with which I am most familiar, namely, the foreign affairs committee which is a special case of unaccountability. I describe it as the triple deficit because here again we do not debate issues. Next week the Taoiseach will sign the European treaty and the day after he will tell us how he got on. The issue is that in regard to the different pillars of the European Union, some decisions are taken in intergovernmental consultation, the IGC process. There is a real deficit concerning what is being decided in Europe — in some cases decisions are not even made by parliamentarians. The European Union has more accountability than the foreign affairs committee of any one of the composing countries in terms of some information. It has a limited access to information in regard to intelligence and security. This was brought to the fore during the preparations for the illegal war in Iraq.

In 1986 I proposed the establishment of a foreign affairs committee. The Labour Party and university Senators voted in favour of it in the Seanad. Former Senator Jim Dooge of Fine Gael described it as organised distrust rather than delegated confidence in regard to the Executive, and Fine Gael voted against the proposal. Fianna Fáil abstained. Seven years later, the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs was established. In November 2003, ten years after it was established, I questioned what I was doing on a foreign affairs committee, what we were doing in Parliament discussing foreign affairs if we discover that at an informal meeting which has no constitutional or legal basis, the political wing of Hamas is being added to a proscribed list on the basis of information that has not been presented to any Parliament. My reaction to all of this was one of horror.

When I raised that issue in November 2003 I was referring to the fact the Irish representatives on the Committee of Permanent Representatives in Brussels, COREPER, had conducted preparatory work on the drawing up of names of persons, groups or entities for inclusion on a proscribed list. The permanent representatives had formed their own sub-committee known as the clearing house, and that mechanism was not reported to anybody. Excluding Hamas from talks in 1993 was very significant. There is an almost identical reality in regard to the response to the elections that took place in Palestine. The Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs is a gross example of non-accountability.

There is no reference to the different powers of the European affairs and foreign affairs committees. The European affairs committee can occasionally be briefed, but not on intelligence matters. The foreign affairs committee is not briefed. Does any Member feel that when we eventually formed that foreign affairs committee in 1993 it had any autonomy? I would pose the following questions regarding these committees. What is their role and function? How many of the committees described by the Minister are autonomous? How many are independent? How many have the right to initiate legislation? How many have the power of amendment? How many have the power of scrutiny? How many are limited to scrutiny? In regard to the European affairs and foreign affairs committees, does scrutiny include issues of security? Do issues of security include being briefed on intelligence? What is the relationship of committees, their different roles and functions having been specified, to the plenary session?

I raised the issue of the war in Iraq on the Order of Business and was almost out of order when I asked the Taoiseach whether or not the Government was in favour of pre-emption. I never really got an answer. When Deputy Michael Kitt and I eventually went to Iraq, three or four weeks before the war broke out, it was only after every single obstacle had been placed in our way, including some that were rather pathetic. We were told we would not be able to get insurance and we said we would get it ourselves. Then we were told the person from the committee who would accompany us would not be able to get insurance. When I said we were going anyway, the difficulty with the insurance was suddenly solved. That kind of nonsense indicated more than anything the absolute price to be paid for the absence of autonomy. Will the foreign affairs committee be run as an arm of the Executive from Iveagh House, or will it be an independent committee?

I have the greatest respect for people who go before the people, who get votes and get elected. I do not believe parliamentary reform can be reduced to somehow or other beefing up the Members, telling them what to read, what research journals to read and where to get them. Those provisions are welcome. However, the people who are elected are representing what is very often the feeling of the people. People want a general health service. If there are to be cuts in the health service they do not want patients to suffer. They want public transport. They do not want CIE selling off its property by stealth. On the issue of war, 100,000 people went out onto the streets one Saturday and we could not get a debate in this House.

Other issues arise, some of which I will list. They arise in regard to the role and function of committees in terms of initiation, amendment and scrutiny of legislation. The Dáil should be able to debate their formal authority better. There is the political will. In terms of cross-parliamentary analysis of this issue, the question is asked as to why the Australian Parliament does not get the reforms people like me are looking for. It is because the Labour Party in Australia often saw itself as likely to be in Government and oppositions did not want to concede anything they might have to live with when they themselves were in Government. We are past that point. What we need now is a robust parliamentarism.

Other Deputies have mentioned the hard work put into committee work and the absence of any media attention to it. There is a kind of new fashionable illiteracy in which people will not have to read background economics, history, politics, culture or do comparative work so as to be able to judge a parliamentary performance in terms of its proposals and the value of the different proposals. There is an idea that one can substitute gossip which fits nicely with ten-minute slots so that one gets reduced meaningless speeches, media neglect and so on. I wish the Minister well in his hubris and his optimism when he describes his excitement when he reflects on Deputy Noel Dempsey's historic innovation.

Other things are important. Why should the committees be governed by the availability of limited amounts of time or even such basic things as a room? How often have chairmen had to tell members that they must finish by 4 p.m. because somebody else had the room booked for a meeting? Time and availability of space govern the agenda. The capacity of the committee system is dependent on staff and resources. If a member of a committee raises an urgent issue, how valuable is it if the minutes of that committee are available three months later?

I totally agree with the proposals for a public service channel that would cover the proceedings of the Dáil and committees. We do not need the proceedings to be edited in some smart aleck way, such as, "members were back again in the Dáil today". If I wanted to go down that road, I would say the media were missing again today when we were discussing the work of the committees and they will be missing from the committees. It is disgraceful that there is such a low attendance, and limited time when discussing a matter as fundamental as the genuine public desire to have not just technical access but real political accountability.

The Government will be thanked if it gives to Parliament what it should never have lost. It is up to the Government and Opposition to take back from quangos and unaccountable entities, such as the NRA, the HSE, or HSA the accountability the public wants vested in Parliament.

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