Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Acting Chairman.

It is incredible that the Minister of State has avoided the debate entirely. There is no mention of parties in the proposal:

AND WHEREAS it is proposed to amend Article 15 of the Constitution so as to provide that all members of the Dáil and Seanad shall be representatives of the whole people, not bound by orders or instructions, and responsible only to their conscience:

This is a solemn mandate from the whole people for their benefit and for their interests, not bound by orders or instructions from anywhere. Who mentioned the Whip? They will be responsible only to their conscience. Nobody mentioned anything about the neurotic religious type of training a person might have had from a mosque, a Catholic school, or as a Buddist, or whatever. It is the conscience of an adult human being, from the Latin word, conscienta, to know in entirety from the information, the facts and the situation to hand. It is unbelievable that the Minister of State wasted his Department's time getting speeches typed up and answering things that were not asked.

If the Minister of State wishes to have a distraction I can deal with that very briefly. I refer to the Oireachtas Library and Research Service which is independent. Its briefing document on the Bill states that the reasons members tend to vote along party lines in parliamentary democracies may differ from parliament to parliament. One factor that has been used to explain the strength - I would call it the iron grip - of the Whip in Irish politics or political parties and almost, but not quite to the same extent in the UK, is the power of party leaders over the careers of politicians. In my view, that is not a nice thought. For example, party leaders control jobs, Cabinet seats, committee chairs and electoral resources and to a degree, candidacy.

I will give the House an example. On one of the Bills enacted in 2013, the press reported openly and transparently that 15 people in the Minister of State's party were agonising and wondering what to do as the voting dates passed. There was an announcement and a statement correctly reported in the media that the leader of the party said that any member of the party who did not intend to support party policy would never stand again in any future election. That is where Ireland was in July 2013. Also in July 2013, when one person, who happens to be the party's leader and our Taoiseach, had it in his head to abolish the Seanad, a Bill was drawn up to abolish the Seanad. It passed through this House and the Seanad under the Whip system. This Bill we are discussing today does not deal with the Whip system; it is a constitutional matter. The Seanad is a constitutional institution and our Taoiseach wanted to abolish it. He and his colleague, the Tánaiste, told their members they had to vote for the abolition of the Seanad, that it was a simple case of abolishing the Seanad. When that vote was passed under the Whip, they said to the people - which was an untruth - that we had to do this in order to bring it to the people for their decision. What a lie. I use the word, "lie" and I do not withdraw it. That was a disgusting perversion of democracy.

See this speech in context