David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)

The buzzwords at present seem to be "value for money". The idea of changing the name to the Houses of the Oireachtas Service is a good one. The Houses of the Oireachtas, because of the commission's existence, is taking on an identity of its own and this will be communicated to the people through the communications strategy that has been put in place. The excellent education outreach programme, the excellent new website which has been put in place by the commission and the visitor brochures which were put in place last week are all important developments.

Given the modern communications that are available, such as youtube and twitter, anything stated in this House can be communicated across the country and across the globe within minutes. This was brought to my attention last week when that unfortunate incident occurred which involved an utterance by a Member on the other side. Within a short time, I received a communication from somebody in the United States asking what is happening in Dáil Éireann. It went across the world in minutes. That is why it is so important that we update our way of doing business in this House.

This morning, we spent almost two hours on the Order of Business, holding votes, etc. Like my colleague, Deputy Tom Hayes, and other Deputies, I am a little frustrated about trying to reform and modernise the procedures in the House to provide value for money.

We need to improve the level of debate in the House and we need to start listening to each other. For example, it is frustrating when Members on this side prepare Private Members' business and there is only one Minister or Minister of State on the other side listening. Nobody else bothers to come in to listen and that is insulting.

I draw attention to what happened during the recent strike when Deputies had to come in and were called on by the Chair because there was no list of speakers. Many Members were present and there was a proper interactive debate. Members had a few minutes to speak but they listened to each other, there was interaction and there was a certain amount of dynamism evident, and that is what needs to happen.

The quangos issue has been mentioned time out of number. I am told it will take a consolidated Bill to bring these quangos under scrutiny here so that we can ask questions. It is frustrating to contact one of these agencies and get no response or a response stating that it will write back at some time in the future, but it never does.

The points made by the Minister of State, Deputy Dick Roche, were very interesting. He spoke about the need to have a higher quality public administration, and I agree with him. If I write to an official in the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, as I did recently on behalf of a constituent, and I get no response whatsoever, what answer would the Minister of State, Deputy Roche, give me? As an elected Member of this House, I am ignored. Could the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Power, advise me on what I do then? When one puts down a parliamentary question to a Minister on some of these quangos that ignore us on this side of the House much of the time, the Minister concerned states that he or she is not responsible. Who is responsible? If this is a democracy and we are giving public money to these bodies, how can we hold them to account? They come in to the committees once a year for a cosy chat, but the parliamentary question system is the way to go. When Deputy O'Rourke was Minister for Public Enterprise, she ensured that the quangos under her remit answered questions to her and she made the information available here. Ministers can do this if they wish but they choose not to do so. That is an insult to and a danger for democracy. I could go on and, as my colleague suggested, the debate on this matter should be extended and continue on another date.

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