Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I thank my colleagues for sharing their time and I thank Deputy Brendan Howlin for tabling this motion. It is a long time since this House has had a wide-ranging debate on the current coalition Government, on the institutions that underpin that Government and the Houses of the Oireachtas. Unfortunately, we now have the perfect storm, so to speak, with bad government and outdated and ineffective institutions. Bad government can only be remedied by the people in a general election. The first priority is to make every effort to ensure the general election is held as soon as possible and that the bad Government is removed.

This bad Government has presided over the greatest financial crisis, the greatest recession and the highest unemployment in the history of the State. So bad is this Government that it even attempted to thwart the constitutional right to full Dáil representation of the electors of Donegal South-West, Donegal North-East, Dublin South and Waterford. It has failed to stop the by-election taking place in Donegal, despite its efforts in the courts, and it is now applying to the Supreme Court to prevent the other outstanding by-elections being held. Instead of deploying all its energies to preventing the IMF taking over the country, and preventing a loss of our financial sovereignty, its sole concern is to stay in power, by hook or by crook. In the process, the Government is denying tens of thousands of citizens of this country their democratic right to parliamentary representation. These underhand actions are unacceptable in a democracy and border on dictatorship. Legislation is required to reform this area.

The Labour Party motion includes a substantial and detailed package of reforms which, if implemented, would greatly improve the workings of the institutions. The Government amendment indicates that it will table a reform package to improve the workings of the Dáil. We have not seen the Government's proposals but at least our motion has succeeded in flushing out a response from the Government. However, its proposals deal exclusively with this House and they not extend to the Seanad, the Government or Departments. It will be of little value to reform the Dáil and leave the Government as unaccountable as ever. What is needed is a comprehensive package of reform to overhaul every area of governance so that citizens can once more have confidence in the institutions of the State and in our democracy.

The issues outlined in our motion are comprehensive. Freedom of information has been spancilled by the Government through an increase in fees. Why will the Government not allow new legislation to encompass freedom of information? Whistleblowers' legislation is necessary and appointments to State boards need to be overhauled. There should be spending limits on elections and a cap on donations and regulation of lobbyists. It is important to break the Government monopoly on legislation. The Houses of the Oireachtas should have power to introduce legislation. Responsibility of Ministers to the Dáil must be returned instead of Ministers hiding behind quangos as is currently the practice. This means it is impossible to receive a decent reply to parliamentary questions. The motion proposes increasing the number of Dáil sitting days by 50% and opening up the budgetary process to proper scrutiny. This will be necessary in any case for the European Union if we are not careful. The committees will be given greater powers in order to conduct much of the business and deal with issues which arise. Reform is essentially about the transparency, accountability and effectiveness of Government action and State institutions.

The Government has failed entirely to provide adequate institutional reform to enable Ireland to play a significant part in the development of the European Union in recent times or in maximising the opportunities available through successive treaty changes over the past 13 years of this Government in one form or another. The Taoiseach committed us to treaty change without reference to this House. He returned from a Council meeting and informed the House of the decision. This is not acceptable. It is a case of Government showing disrespect to the House. We have an entitlement but no input into the Commission's annual draft plans, despite the fact that the EU Secretary General, Catherine Day, has told us this is the area in which Ireland can exert the greatest influence. We have not established any alliance with smaller states as we did in the past. There is now a massive power axis consisting of France and Germany and we have done nothing about it. Like Greece, Ireland is now isolated and this is very dangerous in these times when we owe so much money to the ECB and when the IMF wolf is at the door.

The House needs to review how it conducts its business. We need to make our practices and procedures more relevant to the needs of our country and our citizens.

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