Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

It is of vital importance that a message go out from this House that we are in favour of asserting, defending and strengthening the power of Parliament. To do this we must make certain, however, that no misconstruction is placed on the Abbeylara judgment.

In moving this Bill, my Labour Party colleague, Deputy Pat Rabbitte, referred to the opinion of Mr. Justice Geoghegan, Mr. Justice Hardiman, Chief Justice John Murray and others to clearly show that nothing in their judgment suggests there is a limitation on the power of committees. We are all indebted to Deputy Rabbitte and we, in the Labour Party, are proud that he has prepared legislation on whistleblowers, the Garda Síochána (Powers of Surveillance) Bill and the legislation before us which provides for enhanced powers for committees.

The assumption must be rejected that because one is elected to Parliament, one should enjoy a lesser degree of trust than those who, under the separation of powers, enjoy other powers under the Constitution. No one has the right to suggest that because one is elected to Parliament and gives accountability on policy, one can be assumed to possess a lesser level of objective ability than, for instance, someone who has been appointed by the Executive to the courts and enjoys an autonomy provided for in the Constitution. That would be an outrageous under-labourer version of Parliament and one that would be rejected by nearly all political science examinations of the role of parliament. The reason it would be so rejected is that it is to the state and the elective component of the state parliament that members of the public look for the assessment of the success, failure or maladministration of policy. For a parliament to accept any limitation of its power in policy formation and review or performance in an administrative sense would be to breach a sovereign trust placed in that parliament by members of the public.

This is a tough time for parliaments. I have another opportunity to discuss the reform of parliaments. The weakening of Parliament is to some extent caused by the Executive of the day claiming a monopoly of the right of service in terms of framing, initiating and amending legislation. As someone who has examined this issue across many political systems in my other life, committee systems are weak in countries where the executive exerts a stranglehold on them. This statement can be proved in any of the different political systems. For example, I could cite the inquiry into the Iraq war in the United Kingdom. If one examined the inquiry closely, one would clearly see that accountability is absent where parliament is weakened.

In the same way as the individual citizen has the right to look to the courts for the vindication and protection of his or her rights, the individual citizen also has the right to look to parliament for policy and the review thereof. It is wrong to argue, as has been done by speakers who oppose the Bill, that somehow one can run accountability in policy against personal culpability.

In the Abbeylara case no one suggested that the committee would exercise its functions in terms of a court. One had reached the point where to answer a particular question could transgress into the culpability of an individual. It would, however, be an outrageous misconstruction of the decision in the Abbeylara case to suggest that there was any suggested impediment in the way of a committee doing its work. I share the view held by Ms Justice Catherine McGuinness that the committee could plough ahead and do its work, even without the enactment of the Bill before us, under the 1997 legislation and it would be unconstitutional to seek to place an impediment on Parliament doing its work in this fashion.

Interesting matters flow from this statement. As I have noted in the Joint Committee on the Constitution, it is important to note that, for example, in the European system the countries where committees work effectively are those where the executive does not seek a monopoly over legislation, the committee system is at arm's length from the executive, the opposition has a role and so forth. The question we must ask ourselves is which poses the greater danger - making parliament weak by assuming a misconstruction of the Abbeylara judgment or accepting this Stage of the Bill, amending it in committee and rendering to the Oireachtas the work, duty and capacity of a parliament and rendering to the courts what they must do. At present, the attitude taken towards making the necessary changes and strengthening the powers of committees, an issue on which Deputy Rabbitte's Bill makes a significant contribution, causes serious damage to Parliament. If one misconstrues the Abbeylara judgment, one then makes an assumption about the powers of committees in general. This is profoundly anti-democratic.

The performance of the Garda, banking system and agencies of State are policy issues. The contradiction of legislation agreed in both Houses of the Oireachtas and the performance of such legislation is an issue to which members of the public must correctly turn to Parliament, as they do. If something happens in relation to any aspect of the economy or the areas of State for which agencies have responsibility, it is to the elected Members that members of the public turn in the first instance.

We must remember that one of the justices in the Abbeylara case stated that the judgment refers to the particular instance and facts. The published judgments state that nothing in the decision should inhibit the work of committees. One must, therefore, react to the balance it suggested. It would be outrageous to suggest that the Judiciary must enjoy a higher level of trust than elected representatives. If we do that, it is a perilous road to go down in regard to Parliament.

I would go further and say that in regard to the assumptions about this issue, and I say this as a political scientist, there are far more questions that might be put forward including the ideological bias of the judges themselves in the history of courts that might be over Parliament because, at the end of the day, the public have their chance. They put people in and they put people out but if we wanted to move forward, and we can do that, and have genuine reform in regard to Parliament, we would abandon the Executive monopoly, whoever is in power, over the public service. We would not seek to have a majority in all of the committees and we would allow the committees the power of initiation, amendment and change in legislation.

The day Parliament cannot, through its committees and sub-committees, address the concerns of the public in regard to policy and its administration is a day on which we have said the Parliament is so weak that it is no longer important.

It must be remembered that what we have seen is a dangerous leak from the accountability of Parliament. We cannot afford, in addition to that leak towards unaccountable agencies, to decide ourselves that we will spancel the committees to which we elect people in this House.

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