Dáil debates

Wednesday, 7 November 2007

11:00 am

Photo of Eamon GilmoreEamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

It is great to see the Green Party is having such a profound impact at the heart of government. However, it does not appear to be having much impact on Dáil reform. Its general election manifesto proposed that the Dáil should sit for 45 weeks per year, including Monday afternoons and on Fridays up to lunchtime, from 9.30 a.m. to 7 p.m., a total of 180 days in the year. The published Dáil schedule shows that from 26 September, when we came back, to 3 July 2008, when the House is due to rise for the summer, we will have sat for 93 days, which is approximately 20 days fewer than the average sitting time in the late 1980s, when I entered the House, and the early 1990s.

As a practical suggestion towards Dáil reform, why do we not come back in the second week of January? Why are we not due to come back until the end of January? As is the case in many of the parliaments like those in whose visitors' galleries the Taoiseach has been sitting, why do we not continue sitting until late July? Why do we not come back until late September after the summer recess? Why are we not back by mid-September at the latest? None of those proposals involves technology, television etc. It would simply mean we would be back doing our business.

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