Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am not referring to the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government but to the Minister for Justice and Equality. Where are we with these powerful committees that were supposed to solve the problem of the imbalance in power between the Executive and the Oireachtas? We now have fewer committees than before and they are more starved of cash than ever. In reality, nothing at all has changed. If what has happened to the committees is a measure of the Government's commitment to address the imbalance between the Oireachtas and the Executive, then it can only be described as a breathtaking failure.

We were also promised reform on parliamentary questions but again, nothing has changed. There is a new a rule that Members can appeal to the Ceann Comhairle if they feel a Minister is not giving them the proper information but that is a charade and a fig leaf. It has been rarely invoked and even more rarely successful. In fact, I do not think it has been successful at all and I would love to hear of even one example of it working. Essentially, nothing has changed in this area either.

We were promised a 50% increase in sitting hours and got a 25% increase. One might say that is half a loaf which is better than no bread but what does the 25% increase consist of? It consists of Friday sittings, when there are no votes, no questions to Ministers and no real parliamentary activity taking place. It is a parody and a mockery of reform.

In terms of topical issues, the time has changed, admittedly. Instead of being taken at 8.30 p.m., they are taken earlier in the day which could count as a change. A few additional minutes have been given to topical issues, which also counts as a change, I suppose. However, I do not see any real difference between the way topical issues are dealt with now and the old adjournment debates. They amount to a staid, Civil Service scripted encounter between the Opposition Member and the Minister. We had hoped, at the very least, that one valid criticism the Minister's party made of the previous Government would be addressed. During the old adjournment debates there would be three or four adjournment matters and the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government might take the first one, for example. He would then sit there and read out the scripts in reply to the other matters raised. Unfortunately, that practice has crept in again. Unrelated Ministers come into the House and talk about things they patently know very little about. I do not have to dig into the realms of parliamentary history to find an example of this. There was an example in the House today only an hour and a half ago. The Chief Whip, Deputy Kehoe, was dealing with topical issues and finished up dealing with a topical issue about the death of Father Niall Molloy. He read his script and when a few questions were put to him, he went back and read part of the script again. That is not real reform in any true sense of the word.

I recall some of the lofty phrases from the Opposition benches during the previous Administration about the overuse of the guillotine. I do not have time to read some of the comments made into the record but one would be forgiven for thinking that the use of the guillotine by the last Government was as damaging as the machine used in late nineteenth century France. We were led to believe that the guillotine would only be used in the most extreme circumstances by the current Government, but what has happened? Ten items of legislation have been guillotined already, including things like the Social Welfare Bill, when the basic income of hundreds of thousands of people was reduced. That Bill was simply guillotined through the House. I was taken in by the language and genuinely thought that the use of the guillotine would change. Again, I am doomed to disappointment because the guillotine is now used as casually by this Government as it was by the Jacobeans in France.

Other promises remain untouched, unspoken and seem to have disappeared into some sort of Bermuda triangle of lethargy. Unvouched expenses are still a feature of this Administration. I do not see anything on the promise of a relaxation of the rules on Cabinet confidentiality. I do not know what happened to the famous Constitution day. I know about Bastille Day but I do not know anything about Constitution day, which the Taoiseach was supposed to introduce.

Looking at the wider picture, we are all familiar with the long-running saga of the Minister's report cards. The Taoiseach promised faithfully that he would introduce a system of report cards for Ministers. On "The Late Late Show" he stated, "I am starting the report cards already". At Christmas 2011, he promised to keep his Minister's noses to the grindstone by publishing a report on their performance. Recently, however, his spokesman admitted that there would be no report cards.

That is the saga of the report cards.

The constitutional convention was, again, a good idea in principle but an empty vessel in reality. Deputies on all sides have called for electoral reform but the convention will not be considering this area during the lifetime of this Government. It is considering such monumental matters as whether the President should serve for a term of five years or seven years. Let us be blunt, who cares?

The cost of ministerial cars was supposed to have been halved but I think it has doubled. The issue of appointments to State boards is interesting because a lot of people voted for the parties currently in Government on the basis that they would make the appointment process transparent and clean. What happened every time there was a vacancy on a State board?

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