Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)

I thank Deputy Howlin for bringing this timely motion to the House. At this time of national crisis it is vital that we review, examine and reform how we use the powers vested in us by the people. The public interest and efficiency, with the elimination of waste, must be re-established. In that regard, I want to concentrate on one area that have raised repeatedly and that needs urgent attention, namely, the transfer of power vested in this House by the people to unaccountable quangos.

Our system of democracy is a relatively new system. Our history books barely reach any form of elective process. Rather, we learn of the system of wars and battles to establish rulers. Gradually a system with some form of representative parliaments was established. First, they were confined to the landed gentry and those with substantial property. Eventually all males were given the right to vote but women were excluded. After a considerable struggle the system we now know as universal suffrage was established. We now have a representative democracy.

It is recognised that in the system power lies with and is vested in the people. The people select one of their number to represent them through a secret ballot. The people thereby transferred their power to that public representative for a limited period to serve them by exercising the power so transferred. If they are not satisfied with how that power is exercised, the people can, and often do, take it back. The exercise of that option may be used in large measure by the people in the near future.

It is the duty of this House to respect and preserve that power we are given and to exercise it for the common good. It is our duty to hand power back to the people when the time comes but, because we have handed over large tranches of power to a wide range of State and semi-State bodies - let us call them quangos - we cannot hand that power back to the people. We have thereby diminished the hard-won authority of the people we represent.

Every time we set up an authority or body for whatever purpose and declare it is independent, and despite the fact that the authority will be 100% funded by the people's tax, I, as a public representative, am precluded from raising a question or tabling a motion in this House on how that body is using the taxpayer's money. That diminishes democracy and dilutes the power given by the people to Parliament by giving it to an outside unaccountable body. That is an abuse of the power given to us. It should not have happened. It must be reversed.

It is not only at national level that this democratic deficit has been created. At local authority level we elect councillors but deny them any real authority in deciding how local services are run or how they are financed. Local authorities such as county councils and city councils are run and managed by officials who have not been elected and the councillors become a buffer between the public and the management. It is now time we expressed our faith in democracy at local level, restored power to these chosen by the people, and returned the managers and their large staff of civil engineers and programme managers to the role they should have had, that is, as advisers.

The outcome is that there are somewhere in the region of 1,000 areas fully funded by the taxpayer which I, as a public representative, cannot raise or question in this House, where I have been sent by the people. These range from health to roads to the environment. Only last week when I wanted to raise an issue about a local illegal dump in my constituency I had great difficulty finding a form of words to overcome the fact that a quango was responsible for such matters. All of these quangos have boards, chief executive officers, chairpersons and spin-doctors to tell us the great job they do for us. They all are rewarded for their services, with some paid more than the Taoiseach or Ministers. Apart from the democratic deficit they create, perhaps there is an area of major savings that could be explored here also. I am not suggesting that those of us who are elected do not need experts to advise us; we do. However, it is just that - advice. It is when the experts and the advisers become the decision-makers that democracy is diminished.

I refer briefly to one aspect of the Government's amendment to my party's proposal which welcomes the Government tabling of a Dáil reform package. What crass hypocrisy. The package was discussed in detail at the Dáil reform committee and at the point of agreement, the Government Chief Whip informed the meeting that he did not have the authority to proceed, in other words, the Government's own package of reforms was vetoed by the Taoiseach.

We must restore the right of an elected Member of this House to raise questions and get answers on the use of taxpayers' money. That is an essential of democracy. We must reclaim and restore to the people the powers they vested in us. Quangos are a negation of democracy and where they are seen to be useful, they must be accountable to this House. As the Minister for Finance stated in this House, government by quango is not government at all.

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