Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

I thank all Deputies who participated in this short but useful debate. I apologise for not being present throughout, but there were other things happening today that involved Ministers.

I do not want to downplay the importance of this debate in any way. I am very passionate about the role of Parliament. We have not focused enough on the rebalancing of Parliament and the Executive. In the past, many Governments felt that this place was nothing more than a rubberstamp for decisions that were made by the Government, and we need fundamentally to break that view. We need to make this place fit for purpose, able to hold Governments to account and to initiate policy, respecting all mandates in the House. In that way, this side of the House will have no monopoly in either devising or amending legislation, and I hope that good ideas, from whatever quarter, will be welcomed by this Government.

I join you, a Cheann Comhairle, in complimenting those Deputies who used this debate to make their maiden speeches. I thank them for that because it is an important subject. Tús maith leath na h-oibre, and this is only a beginning and an opening of ideas on the changes that need to be made to make this place fit for purpose. I am enthused by the welcome that I discern for the new Government, but also for the enthusiasm for the new crop of Members in this House. There is a willingness to change and not to see everything that was done in the past as the only way of doing things. We should not throw out the baby with the bath water, because there are many good traditions and practices that we need to maintain, but there is much reform that we need to carry out as well.

Let me summarise one or two of the main points that were made. There is a need for committees to be able to inquire. We need to row back the Abbeylara judgment, which I think has been overly interpreted to be more restrictive than the judges intended it to be. Very good work was done by committees such as the DIRT inquiry. I was on the Abbeylara inquiry and I was one of the respondents in the High Court and Supreme Court cases on the matter, when the position of the inquiring power of the Dáil was diminished. We need to push that back.

I agree that membership of committees should be on merit. Appointments to the chairs of committees in the US are based on seniority, but maybe that is not the best thing. Giving more rights to the committee members themselves to determine their own chairs is something I am happy to discuss with my Government colleagues and with the Opposition. We need to reduce the overall number of committees so that people are not running from committee to committee. In the last Dáil we had Members who were on several committees and we had to drag people in to form a quorum to begin meetings. This was just not good enough, so we need a smaller number of better resourced committees with clear, defined functions, and to give them the publicity they need as well. That is why there is an idea of having a committee week every fourth week so that committees meet in the Chamber and the media look at the workings of committees. So much detailed work that was done for months on end on committees went unnoticed when trivial stuff that went on in this Chamber got headlines. We need to break that.

Many important points were made in the debate. Although I was not here for all of it, my officials have made careful note of it and I will undertake to read the transcript of all that was said. We need to continue this spirit of dialogue so that we can have a working committee as the start of reform mechanism, because there are other legislative and constitutional actions we need to take to restore the trust that is broken in the ability of politics and Parliament to do the people's business effectively. I pledge to play my part to the best of my ability and to be open to every idea that emanates from this House, in order to make this place one of the most effective parliamentary chambers in Europe.

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