Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Last week I suggested that an opportunity had been missed. This Bill proposes the reduction by eight of the number of Members. I do not see the point of this proposal. A reduction in the number of Members by eight will not save a significant sum. The offices and staff provided to Members cost the Exchequer just shy of €300,000 a year. Contrary to much of the rhetoric, Independent Members are the least expensive at just over €240,000. Ironically, Fianna Fáil Deputies are the most expensive at in excess of €370,000 - about €130,000 more per Deputy than the Independent Members. The reduction by eight will not save the Exchequer a significant amount of money; it will be a saving of less than €2.5 million; neither will it make the Dáil more effective, which is badly needed. One could remove 20 Deputies from the House tonight and no one would spot any difference tomorrow morning.

This Bill could have been a radical initiative. We are supposed to have a parliamentary democracy but it does not exist in any meaningful sense. Political scientists agree that we have the most centralised Cabinet control of any democracy in the western world. This is a damning finding. Dáil Éireann is constitutionally tasked with holding the Cabinet to account. The Minister was formerly in opposition and he is now a member of the Cabinet. He knows that the party leadership controls its party and controls the voting. Therefore, the Cabinet controls Parliament, something it is not meant to do.

This control is seen to act every day in this Chamber. At Leaders' Questions the Taoiseach regularly avoids giving direct answers to questions posed by the Opposition. This is sometimes legitimate and sometimes not. Ministers are no better much of the time when dealing with questions. Members of the Cabinet use obfuscation on many occasions - although I do not include the Minister, Deputy Hogan, who is present. Private Members' business is one of the only opportunities for Members on this side to table legislation and meaningful motions. However, we can only vote on the Government counter-motion. The Topical Issue debate was initially welcomed. A few months ago the State paid €2.25 billion euro to unguaranteed bondholders in AIB yet I was unable to raise this matter on the agenda of the House that week. I imagine I was not the only Member trying to raise the matter in the House. If I remember correctly, we had a Topical Issue debate about sheep-worrying up a mountain somewhere.

Second Stage debates on legislation are much like this one where people like me make speeches to empty rooms like this one. No Opposition amendments are allowed on Report and Final Stages because the legislation is about to be passed; the Opposition amendments have not been cleared by the Office of the Attorney General; and the Dáil does not have access to similar legal expertise.

Voting is arguably the most important part of a Deputy's work in that it is an expression of parliamentary democracy. Government backbenchers and, indeed, Opposition party backbenchers, have no choice about how they vote. The X case is on the agenda for very tragic reasons. Proposed legislation will be debated tomorrow and I imagine every Government Deputy will vote against it, even though many of them probably agree with it. The Taoiseach said he would not allow a free vote on this, the most sensitive and personal of issues. He said that Fine Gael does not work that way and that he would not allow Fine Gael Deputies to vote according to their conscience on this most sensitive of issues. However, he said that he wants everyone to have his or her say. That is a farce and a parody of parliamentary democracy.

This does not happen in other countries. I refer to a recent report in The Economist which stated that this year in the House of Commons, Government MPs voted against the UK Government in 40% of votes. This is also a common occurrence in the United States Congress.

It is said that the real legislative work takes place in committee. I acknowledge I have seen bouts of co-operation break out at meetings of the finance committee and the justice committee. However, this is not normal and the committees are not independent. They do not hold the relevant Minister to account in any meaningful way. I question the point of Dáil Éireann and its 166 Members. Last week I asked the Minister, Deputy Howlin, if the Government would consider a referendum to remove the clause that only a Minister is permitted to table an amendment to any legislation that incurs a charge on the Exchequer. This is a preposterous rule. Imagine a multinational corporation instructing its senior management team to find a way out of financial trouble but that no one is allowed to suggest any solution that costs money. The Minister, Deputy Howlin, replied, in essence, that the Government would never allow Members to make suggestions that cost money because this would result in a collapse of the system in a flurry of populism and nonsense. If the Government is not willing to accept that Members of this House could potentially act responsibly, then why have a Dáil?

Article 28.4.1⁰ of the Constitution states: "The Government shall be responsible to Dáil Éireann." Article 28.4.4⁰ states: "The Government shall prepare Estimates of the Receipts and Estimates of the Expenditure of the State for each financial year, and shall present them to Dáil Éireann for consideration."

Members of Dáil Éireann do not consider the budget. In 2006, a report gave zero out of ten for time given to the Parliament to consider Estimates and zero out of ten for data provided to the Parliament to allow it to interrogate Government proposals. This year sees a crazy situation. The so-called economic management council is even keeping members of the Cabinet in the dark. There is no consideration of the budget by Dáil Éireann, which the Constitution decrees is meant to happen.

What is the point, therefore, in spending so much money, €50 million, on all of us if we do not get to do what we are elected to do and that which, to be fair, we all came here to do? The truth is that after the Chamber elects a Taoiseach and he or she appoints a Cabinet, that is pretty much it; the Cabinet runs the show for the next few years with the Departments. For the rest of us, there is a very limited meaningful role to play. While Members put in their time and try to become Ministers of State and, ultimately, Ministers, there is no meaningful legislative role for most of them to play, despite how good or smart they are or how much they want to serve their country. It does not matter how hard one works. Therefore, what is the point in reducing the number of Members of the Dáil from 166 to 158? I accept that the Minister is constitutionally constrained, but, bearing in mind the wider picture, the reduction is window-dressing.

Ireland has one Deputy for every 27,640 people. In the United Kingdom there is one Member of Parliament for every 96,000 people, while in Germany there is one for every 131,000. Why do we have four times as many Members as the United Kingdom and five times as many as Germany?

I appreciate that my proposal would require a referendum and that it is beyond the scope of the Bill. I propose radically reducing the number of Members, perhaps to 100. Perhaps we should halve the number, to 83. This would allow for a meaningful legislative role for every Member to play. It would force us all to think very carefully about who we send here. A referendum would be required. Every Member receives considerable criticism from the public for a wide variety of reasons, some justified and some not. Let us ask the people whether they would prefer to have 100 Deputies or half the current number? There are arguments on both sides. I suggest a radical reduction to 100 or lower.

The people pay a lot of money for 166 Members of the Dáil. Despite the considerable criticism, every single Member does his or her best to represent his or her constituents, but we must ask how many legislators are actually required in a country the size of Ireland. A total of 166 are not required. A reduction of eight is not enough; the turkeys need to vote for Christmas. It is time that this House examined in a very serious way how it is run. We should ask the population the type of Dáil it wants to have.

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