Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This House cannot do the work Westminster does. Let us look at what happened when four Government Deputies said they could not vote with the Government on an issue of conscience. In Westminster they would not have lost the Whip. They would not have been thrown out. Deputy Mathews would not have got thrown off the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform. Last year in Westminster Government MPs voted against the Government 40% of the time and they did not lose the Whip. This is the only parliament in the democratic world that is run like this. There is a consensus among political scientists – the Minister scoffed at the point on the previous occasion when I made it in committee that we would look at the opinion of experts – that Dáil Éireann is the most controlled parliament in the developed world.

I put it to the Minister that I would like the Dáil and the Oireachtas to be able to do some of the stuff that can be done in Westminster, but until the Government relinquishes the obsessive control over its own backbenchers we will not be able to do that. It is reciprocated. The Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform has just set up a sub-committee to examine taxation loopholes, at my request. It will be important work. At our first meeting only one Government Deputy showed up. When Government Deputies show up on Committee Stage they are not allowed to speak or table amendments against the Government. They are not allowed to say what they want. Therefore the public does not trust us. The latest Bertelsmann study on the public’s trust in elected representatives shows that we have one of the lowest levels of trust in the developed world because so much control is exerted over party Deputies.

See this speech in context