Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the changes to allow for debate on topical issues. That is a positive initiative proposed by Fianna Fáil. It is important such debates are managed constructively and that we do not deal with a host of parish pump issues in the middle of the working day. Equally, it is important that we find a system under which Members who have concerns about legitimate constituency issues can raise them. We do not want to see a situation develop such as that at Westminster where government backbenchers come in with scripts to laud the work of particular Ministers; we want to have a more positive and meaningful role.

We also welcome the extended sitting times. We are concerned, however, about the proposed Friday sittings, a positive initiative in so far as it will allow an opportunity to discuss Private Member's Bills, but we had looked forward to a more substantive session that would involve legislation and Ministers answering questions the way they would during a routine sitting day. It is, therefore, something of a missed opportunity, although we recognise the importance of new initiatives such as Members having significant time to introduce Private Members' Bills. As others have mentioned, at the last election the message on the doorsteps was that those of us returned were to focus on national issues. This system gives us an opportunity to work on Private Members' Bill and legislation, an opportunity that was not provided previously. I note, however, that the people who were advocating more work on national issues are still coming to constituency clinics and demanding that local issues be dealt with.

The major weakness of the initiative concerns the accountability of the Taoiseach. Looking at the Taoiseach's current approach to answering questions, the initiative provides him with an opportunity to participate even less in giving an account to the House. He will spend half an hour less on questions, combined with the new aggressive approach by his office to transferring questions to other Ministers which has been the subject of heated debate on the Order of Business on a number of occasions. This is completely contrary to the personal and party promise he made. In his final press conference before the election he talked about reform and said the Taoiseach should spend more time answering questions. He gave an unambiguous commitment to attend and answer questions on Thursdays. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government reiterated this commitment on 6 March when he said the Taoiseach was personally committed to answering questions on Thursdays. When the proposal for establishing committees was published, the Government hailed its own reforming zeal in cutting numbers. It did not, however, mention its intention to establish a raft of sub-committees which effectively carry out the work of the supposedly abolished committees. What happened was then disguised as reform. I am concerned about the lessening of the time the Taoiseach will attend the House, about the doing away with questions to the Taoiseach on Wednesdays and not honouring the commitment to come into the House on Thursdays. We welcome that the fact that there will be Leaders' Questions, but we would prefer to see the Taoiseach dealing with them.

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