Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It reduces the number of Deputies from 166 to 158, which is a reduction of eight or less than 5%. On the basis that each Deputy costs the Exchequer approximately €250,000, that constitutes a saving of approximately €2 million. However, will that make the Oireachtas more effective or will it make democracy more effective in Ireland? It will not, although I believe it could have done. The question this Bill should have been addressing is, what is the problem that must be fixed? Having participated in this Dáil for almost two years, I can state that the Oireachtas does not work. Before I was elected, I worked with large public and private sector organisations, helping them to transform their cultures to have high-performing cultures. I can safely state that in terms of cultural dysfunction, in my experience the Oireachtas is in a league completely of its own. Much of this is down to centralised Cabinet power.

As the Minister is aware, Ireland has the most centralised power structure of any western democracy. This House does not hold the Executive to account. In the Chamber, Government backbenchers always vote along party lines or they get thrown out of the party. This is not normal and in other democracies, this does not happen. In other democracies, elected representatives within Government parties do vote against their Governments and they are not thrown out of their parties. Legislating for the X case is on the agenda at present for tragic reasons. Tomorrow night, Government Deputies will vote against the motion tabled, even though many of them will agree with it. Moreover, what will happen when legislation from the Government side finally comes before the House? One Labour Party Deputy was quoted in the newspapers on Sunday as stating that there should not be a free vote because if there was a free vote for this issue, there could be a free vote for anything. If one puts aside the lack of logic of that statement, it is highly telling. The Deputy was stating that directly elected representatives should not under any circumstances ever be allowed to vote as they see fit to exercise their democratic mandate.

As for the committees, I sit on the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform and I can tell Members it is not independent. It holds neither the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, nor the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, to account. Moreover, the level of control by the Cabinet is so pervasive that Deputy Mathews was unable to get the wording changed on an invitation to the Governor of the Central Bank, Patrick Honohan. In respect of political funding, I have suggested that all political funding should go directly to the Deputies and if they then wish to give it to their respective parties, they should be allowed do so. However, party backbenchers have argued vehemently against this, terrified that it would transfer power and democratic accountability from their parties to them.

My question to my fellow Deputies is this: if we do not vote according to our judgment, our conscience or in the interests of those whom we represent, if we cannot publicly disagree with the leaders of the parties of which we may be members and if we do not even want political funding to come to us, what are we doing here?

What are we, as Members of Dáil Éireann, doing in that case? Article 28 of the Constitution states "The Government shall be responsible to Dáil Éireann" but it is not, as the Government - or the Cabinet - controls Dáil Éireann completely.

It is getting worse. In 2008 the Oireachtas voted for the Credit Institutions (Financial Support) Act, which gave the Minister for Finance power to give the banks any amount of money they wished for.

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