Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government will oppose this Bill for a number of reasons including the confusion that such a wording would introduce into our Constitution, the impact it could have on the working of this Parliament and the fact that it would not be in line with the Government's Oireachtas reform policies.

Since taking office in March 2011, the Government has been more committed to reforming the Oireachtas than any of its predecessors. In less than four years in office we have introduced two packages of Dáil reform, restructured the Oireachtas committee system and created an Oireachtas inquiry system. We are committed to introducing more reform to our Parliament before the Government seeks re-election in 2016 and continuing the process of Oireachtas reform in our second term of office.

The Deputy believes that a constitutional provision, such as his, is required to protect the Oireachtas and its elected members from the influence of extreme and perhaps undemocratic outside forces. The Government believes that the Constitution, adopted by the Irish people in a time when extremist politics were on the march across mainland Europe, already addresses this concern clearly and in a robust fashion.

Article 15.10 of the Constitution recognises the protection required to enable members of the Oireachtas to carry out their duties while also allowing each House of the Oireachtas the freedom to make its own rules and standing orders. Article 15.10 of the Constitution states:

Each House shall make its own rules and standing orders, with power to attach penalties for their infringement, and shall have power to ensure freedom of debate, to protect its official documents and the private papers of its members, and to protect itself and its members against any person or persons interfering with, molesting or attempting to corrupt its members in the exercise of their duties.

This clearly provides the constitutional principle that Members of the Oireachtas enjoy freedom to debate in each House of the Oireachtas and the freedom not to be interfered with, molested or corrupted in the exercise of their parliamentary duties. Rather than adding to those freedoms, the amendment proposed in this Bill would dilute such freedom and leave them open to question.

Everyone, including Oireachtas Members, has constitutional rights of expression and association and they have a right to decide to run for election as part of a political party or as a non-party candidate and to work as such after being elected. The proposed constitutional amendment could impact upon these rights and the wider implications of this would be negative for our parliamentary system and the people of Ireland, who expect that their public representatives will provide a stable Government. No restriction should be placed, in this democracy, on any individual who, within the law, wishes to join a political party or movement, who wishes to campaign for a political cause and who wishes to stand before the voting public and seek election to public office as a member of a political party or as a non-party candidate. Once elected by the people, such individuals should not be denied their existing constitutional rights to expression and association, nor their right to work with other like-minded public representatives as part of a lawful party or group to achieve their policies and principles. To attempt to restrict such a process would be to undermine democracy.

Under the current system, the fact that, once elected, a public representative can decide to leave the party if they are not in agreement with a party policy is evidence that representatives are already free to act in accordance with their conscience. By way of contrast, under many parliamentary systems, if a representative votes against his or her party and crosses the floor of the House, this forces an immediate by-election. Such anti-defection provisions exist in India and, in different ways, in Hungary and Portugal. Recently, in the UK, we have seen MPs who have left their party, resigned from the House of Commons and stood in the resulting by-election for their new party.

The wording proposed within this Bill includes a number of concepts that have the potential to lead to constitutional confusion. The Bill indicates that Deputies and Senators have the same representational role. That is not the case. It is clear that Deputies have a representational role in relation to their constituencies as well as a national role. The Constitution sets out, in Article 16 on Dáil Éireann and in Article 18 on Seanad Éireann, the system by which individuals become Members of each House. The role Deputies and Senators have as representatives is clear from these provisions and no effort should be made to limit or put artificial constraints upon that role.

In addition the Bill's reference to "orders or instructions" could be read as outlawing, in advance, any coalition or structured arrangement whereby a Deputy agreed to support a Government. It could also encourage court applications about political questions, politicising our court system in a way that could undermine the existing separation of powers within the Constitution and damage Parliament, the Executive and the Judiciary. A further point is that the phrase "responsible only" in the Bill could have unexpected consequences if a Deputy was known to take a position based on a mixture of motives.

The Bill is dependent on what is considered an individual's conscience and this is hardly specific enough to be a constitutional principle. For some individuals only social issues should be considered matters of conscience. For others, economic issues are matters of conscience.

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