Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

The economic and financial issues the country faces have culminated in the following decision, communicated today by Reuters:

Forget passing the 2011 budget. A new Government with a strong parliamentary majority may now be the only thing that will convince investors that Ireland can and will overcome its financial crisis.

The statement goes on:

Sustained political turmoil would complicate Irish plans to resume borrowing in the bond markets from January and analysts said bringing forward the general election, either before the budget or shortly after it, could be the best solution.

That is the sort of remark that is being made internationally. It is a clear indication of no confidence, internationally, in the Government and its policies. The political system in which the Minister of State is involved has contributed to this scenario where every decision is parked into a quango and 11 agencies of the State were merged into the HSE, resulting in no rationalisation of efficiencies but in a worse health service. There have been no reforms in the public service and the Government had to commission the OECD to tell it what to do. The Sir Humphreys of this world are not being told by the Minister of the day to get on with implementation, even though the unions are up for making the necessary changes. That is the sort of political decision making that has brought the country to this sorry mess.

We need a radical change. Fine Gael has published its programme of radical change entitled New Politics, which is a very ambitious programme of political reform. Our starting point is simple. It is that Government and political failure lies at the heart of Ireland's economic collapse and the finger of responsibility must point directly to the policy failures of the recent and present Fianna Fáil-led Governments and their willingness to promote the interests of the, so called, golden circle over the interests of the citizen.

Under Fianna Fáil a political culture developed which ensured that the bankers and the developers were not dealt with before it was too late, a culture which tolerates cosy cartels and high costs in the private sector and ignores the need for radical reform in the public sector. However, it is also clear that several key weaknesses in Ireland's political system facilitated the failures of the last 12 years, in particular a hugely centralised State with few real checks and balances; an over-powerful Executive that increasingly ignores the Dáil; a proliferation of State agencies and quangos that answer to no one; a model of social partnership which effectively excludes the Dail; and an outdated budget and fiscal system that makes it extremely difficult to manage the State's finances properly.

Fine Gael, in its document, New Politics, believes that central to our party's vision and the transformation of Ireland is the transformation of politics itself. As part of the new politics, we are advocating that one third of the membership of the Oireachtas is no longer required. In other words, we would put the abolition of the Seanad in a referendum to the people. We would have a stronger budgetary system and a stronger committee system in the Dáil that would hold Ministers and State agencies to account and get real answers in an open and transparent manner about decisions that are being made. We would involve the citizens in a constitution day, to ensure that all the issues dealing with freedom of information, whistleblowers' charters, standards in public office and the registration of lobbyists would be properly scrutinised by the public in a consultative way so that we would have a package of measures in an Open Government Bill to offer to the Irish people in a referendum and in constitutional referendums when they are necessary.

We believe, in Fine Gael, that there needs to be a fundamental shift of power from the State to the citizen so that local people and local communities have more control over their own lives. In Government we will deliver more accountable local government and national Government and we will dismantle the public sector's command and control model, where everything is run from the top and local voices and concerns are constantly ignored. This can be done within 12 months of assuming office.

We also believe it is vital that the citizens of Ireland are actively involved, through a citizens' assembly, in drawing up the various proposals to be put to the people in a referendum, similar to what was done in Canada and the Netherlands. The purpose of the assembly will be to consider what changes should be made to Ireland's political and government system over and above the specific changes that Fine Gael proposes to make and to make recommendations on how the electoral system might be reformed.

The All-Party Committee on the Constitution has made important recommendations on these issues, including a recommendation that by-elections be held within six months of a vacancy arising. I am surprised that the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, with his colleagues in Government, voted down that proposal in June of this year. It would have saved the Government the money spent on going to the courts and saved the courts having to force the Government to hold a by-election in Donegal South-West and, perhaps in due course, elsewhere.

There is also a need for a constitutional amendment to deal with the Abbeylara judgment. This would allow the committees of this House to have much more power to call witnesses and give them the ability to hold full investigations, rather than having tribunals of inquiry, which are very expensive and can often run into the sand. The banking crisis, which is topical, could also be addressed by a committee of the Dáil, as the DIRT inquiry under the chairmanship of the late Deputy Jim Mitchell was able to carry out valuable work when Members of the House, on an all-Party basis, came to conclusions in a very short space of time and an inexpensive way.

There are ways in which we can do our business if we have the authority and power in the Dáil to give meaningful roles and responsibilities to the Members of the House rather than having a centralised system of political control by the Executive, which is not in the interests of the citizen and has led to the political failures that have brought the country to the brink of financial ruin. That has to change. It must change and it will change.

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