Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

-----and agreeing a set of principles. They have a conscience.

Every one of us has a conscience. My conscience, and issues of conscience, are not the exact same for me as for any other Deputy in this Chamber, and are not the exact same as for the 6,700 constituents who voted for me, but they put their trust in me because I went to them with a set of policies and guidelines on which I would vote, either in government or in opposition.

I have stuck by that and I will suffer the consequences, as will everybody else in this Chamber, if and when the next election comes about, because at that stage the public will weigh up whether or not I did a good job and whether I lived up to my promises to them. My promise to them is my manifesto, my political programme. One of the reasons, probably the central reason, that political parties and politicians are held in low esteem is that they have not lived up to those political promises. They will suffer the consequences, as the party opposite them suffered the consequences in the last election. In the next election the Labour Party, in particular, will suffer the consequences of its refusal to stick by the promises it made to the electorate. That is why we have democratic elections. That is why we give the opportunity every five years - maybe it should be every four years, like America - to hold politicians to account. They can also hold politicians and their parties to account at other opportunities, as they did in the local elections. I am of the firm belief that the manifesto a political party produces is a social contract with the electorate. If that is not lived up to, one will suffer the consequences.

The argument behind this legislation is that there should be free votes on issues of conscience. Issues of conscience are different for different people. For me, every single budget is a conscience issue and one cannot run a country if every single vote on financial, judicial or on any legislation is open to a free vote, because then one will be hampered continuously. If every vote was a free vote, the lobbyists - those who have money behind them, extremists, those who are very vocal - would have much more say in what would happen in this Chamber. We have seen what happens in America, for instance - the pork-barrelling that goes on in every vote. Every time there is a budget, it goes on and on and nothing gets done. One need only look at the last two administrations and how everything was held up by that pork-barrelling. I agree that it happens to a degree here, but it does not happen to the same degree, and we should not open ourselves up to that type of influence on the Dáil in the future. That could be one of the unforeseen consequences of this Bill.

Deputy Joan Collins said that party Deputies come to the House on a Tuesday and vote on the legislation that was discussed on a Friday, even though they have not been here - they just traipse in and vote whatever way the Whip tells them. The same is true of the vast majority of Independent Deputies, who are not here on a Friday either. They traipse in, without having taken part in Friday discussions, and vote, usually according to the advice given by somebody else. At least in a party, one has a spokesperson, who is here, who contributes and who is held accountable within the party for the position they are adopting. One places trust in them and in the Whips. Much of what we need is trust, within our parties, within the Dáil itself and between us and the electorate. The biggest challenge for us as parliamentarians is to win back that trust. We can only do so if we live up to the social contract we commit to when we go to the polls every five years or so.

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