Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

The Leas-Cheann Comhairle takes a technical approach. I will always go by his advice.

I dislike it when people make broad statements without any basis. I do not know the basis for the Minister of State's claim that decentralisation was not a good thing. I assure him that if he checks with the Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, Deputy Perry, and the other Deputies from counties Sligo and Mayo, they will report few downsides to decentralisation but a number of upsides. Nobody has shown me a shred of evidence that the decentralisation of a significant section of the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs caused it to operate less efficiently than was the case when it was based in Dublin. Most people did not realise it had moved other than to note that the its telephone number had changed. The Gaeltacht section of the Department has always been in Furbo and if the Minister of State really believed decentralisation was a bad idea, why does he not reverse the decision? He knows his rural Deputies will quickly tell him that decentralisation provided for more balanced decision making because those who made the decisions lived in different parts of the country. It also provided efficient services and employment opportunities to people within their own regions rather than centralising staff in one city.

There is agreement in the House on the need for reform but beyond that it is difficult to reach a consensus. I agree, however, that the time has come for action. For too long the obsession with reform has been about the time put in not the content or ability to hold meaningful debates. Debates in this House are mainly about reading scripts rather than interaction between members. Unfortunately, this debate will probably be no different. The many hours spent on Second Stage debates and statements have little influence on policy and are often pro-forma and repetitive. Having been on both sides of the House and having tried to take on board good suggestions I found committee debates and the Committee Stage of Bills to be much more productive than the plenary sessions. The era of the sound bite has added to our difficulties because it is sometimes realised there is greater political reward for a short dramatic sound bite than for the hard slog of, for example, committee work on Bills and examination of policy.

The motion proposes to abolish of the whip system. I acknowledge that the party system has no constitutional basis and only limited legislative basis. Parties are the voluntary coming together of people who share common aims and ideals. They are a recognition that by working together people can achieve a lot more than working individually. In the old days, if one wanted to push-start a stalled car, it was preferable to recruit three or four people than to seek the assistance of the strongest person. Working together, three or four ordinary people could achieve a result that the strongest could not achieve alone.

The House operates on a majority basis and to get anything changed requires the majority of Members to be in favour and, therefore, work to an agreed common purpose. The reality is that being a member of a party is like pooling sovereignty. In return for agreeing to accept majority rule within the party a member has a direct input into the policy debate from an early stage. Contrary to popular myth I have seen many proposals from Government being dropped or changed radically because of the input of backbenchers in the party. The idea that party members act like sheep is far from the truth. In order to proceed, however, party members accept the majority decision once the debate is over. Deputies similarly accept that the majority decisions of the Dáil stand until they are changed by a new majority decision.

Parties also facilitate organised specialisation so that all topics and proposals can be covered. It is not possible for an individual Deputy to be briefed on everything that happens in the House. Independent Deputies concentrate on a few areas of policy but if all the Members of the Dáil were independent the danger is that some subjects might not be covered at all. The assertion that party Members vote by instruction is incorrect. Party Members vote following approval by their peers in the parliamentary party, a process in which they have full input. If I was asked to do something that was against my conscience, I would of course refuse to do so. This has never happened in my time in politics but I could not rule out the possibility that it could happen. I would not, for example, vote for the re-introduction of the death penalty. Thankfully, however, I can never see Fianna Fáil going down that route.

The whip system has limited the role of professional lobbyists in our political system. In my years in office I can count on one hand the number of professional lobbyists who approached me. It was well known that I was wary of such groups and I always believed that if an organisation had a point it should approach me directly. It was also well known that the more marginal a person was in society the quicker and better the access he or she would get because it is important to ensure that the voices on the edge are heard.

By having a whip system the ability of powerful interests to bully or buy off individual politicians is severely limited, the bigger picture can be taken into account and the local politician in a party is protected when a decision has to be taken that is good for society but might have local downsides. I recall a politician articulating this issue very well when he said that we all want the refuse removed from our houses and workplaces but none of us want the waste processing facility. We all want mobile telephones but we do not want the masts near our houses. We all want electricity but we do not want the pylons across our countryside. This is the ultimate dilemma but politicians have to take a wider view by balancing the well-being of the individual with the good of society.

If we want to get an understanding of what a whipless Dáil would be like, we should look across the sea to the United States of America. How many in the Technical Group have looked aghast at the powerful interests lobbying votes in the US Houses of Congress? How many have decried the power of the gun lobby to intimidate or even buy votes to ensure that gun control is not introduced? Our system of parties is not perfect and while all systems can lead to abuse, I would be slow to change it radically in light of experiences abroad and certainly not until all the unintended consequences were teased out.

I was somewhat taken aback by the reference in the motion "curtailing the freedom of individual T.D.s to cast their parliamentary votes in the interests of those they represent". First, Members can vote any way they wish and everybody is free to do so. Many times independent Members agree wide-ranging packages with Governments. They even agreed this motion, while operating like a political party, and I am sure not every Independent Member agrees with every word. Like many things in life, it is a compromise However, what shocked me about that reference was the notion that our job is not to represent all the people but to vote in the interests of those we represent. That is a scary thought.

I always thought our first obligation as national politicians was to all the people and not to one section. We have a duty to those who elect us in our constituencies but if the conflict is between the national good and local good, as national politicians, we must take the good of all of the people into account while protecting the interests of the various constituencies we represent. I find the reference to "those they represent" alien in the context of where I come from in politics, as I always thought I represented the people of Ireland no more, no less.

I would like one other simple reform to the business of the House, which I mentioned last week during ráitis ar an Ghaeilge. This courtesy should be extended but we have a difficulty with something very simple for some reason. As a Minister, I attended European Council meetings and the European Parliament. In the Parliament, those who speak in a minority language are not ignored. Members who are sitting in the Parliament do not refuse to listen to what these colleagues have to say. When people do not understand the language of the speaker, they use the translation system.

One of the reasons that Irish is rarely spoken in the House is Members who do not understand the language refuse to listen to colleagues who use it and prefer in many cases to ignore what they are saying rather than wear the headphones provided. That is a great discourtesy to Members who speak Irish, to the minority in the country who use the language on a daily basis and to the constitutional position of the Irish language. People seem incapable of accepting that it is another language and, like all other languages, it should be treated in the same way. I am sure there is no other multilingual Parliament where on a consistent basis members who do not understand one of the official languages refuse to listen through the translation system when it is spoken.

I hope during this Dáil through the good offices of my good colleague, the Minister of State with responsibility for Gaeltacht affairs, who is a native speaker, we can secure agreement in the House that common courtesy will apply to those who speak the first official language in the House and that it will become commonplace that when a Member does not understand the language, he or she will use the headphones provided. If Members have a problem with them because they cover their ears and they are visible, perhaps the answer is to provide ear buds which are not as visible and which are more discreet. If that is the problem, it would mean a small amount well spent in order that this could become a bilingual Parliament. There are a large number of Irish speakers in the Dáil who would contribute in Irish if they thought they would be heeded.

I commented in the past that if I announced I was going to set off an atomic bomb, there would be no reaction as long as I made the announcement in Irish. I would not be far wrong but I hope this Dáil proves me wrong.

I am pleased the Minister of State, Deputy Perry, is present because I am sure he can explain to the Minister without Portfolio that decentralisation to Tubbercurry, County Sligo, worked very well. The Department was as efficient in Tubbercurry as it was in Dublin and it did not prove any difficulty to the Minister.

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