Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This amendment is a good safeguard for fairness and equality for Members of a Parliament. We, rather than parties, have been elected as Members of Parliament. Parties are the umbrella or playing colours of individuals elected to Parliament. It is sometimes good to see what has happened in reality in order to diagnose a problem or explore the possibility of fairness and better conduct in the future. I am not trying to examine scar tissue for the sake of it. Rather, I want to determine whether there is a better way of doing things.

On 2 July 2013 there was a vote in the House and the Government Chief Whip directed Members of the Government parties to vote in a certain way. It was an exceptional piece of legislation and in any other county Members of Parliament would have been given the democratic right as representatives to vote in accordance with their consciences. That did not apply on that occasion, therefore we were voting in accordance with what was not a personal conscience, but rather a conscience within the ambit of being a representative of the whole people, as the German basic law describes in its constitution. The principles of the constitutions of Lithuania, Czech Republic, Latvia and the Netherlands also refer to that. We were prevented from behaving within those democratic principles.

The outcome of not voting in accordance with the direction of the Chief Whip was immediate expulsion from the parliamentary party. We were handed a letter immediately, on 2 July. I am giving the chronology because the House was going to rise within a fortnight, just as we will rise next Thursday on 16 July. The direction to get out of our offices and obey the Chief Whip in what was almost a reprisal for voting in accordance with conscience was over the top. This amendment would prevent such over the top behaviour.

There was a lot of pressure leading up to the decision to vote in accordance with my conscience and my health was not great at the time. I am not revealing this for prurient reasons, but it is important to say it because it happened. I visited my doctor who told me my blood pressure was extremely high. I told him there had been a direction to get out of my offices and he said that was not appropriate. The summer holidays and recess were coming up and it would have been the reasonable and courteous thing to do to organise things by arrangement in a consensual and cordial fashion. There was no emergency. I had a medical certificate that recorded that my blood pressure was elevated and vacating offices was not indicated.

The certificate was presented to the Office of the Taoiseach, as well as to the Chief Whip. It had no effect whatsoever and a week later all my communication lines, such as phones, e-mails and computers, were cut. It was like before the Normandy landings. They were restored and we limped on in the office for a week. The following weekend, without my knowledge, everything was removed, including the pictures on the wall and all my papers and files, from the five-storey building to the basement in Leinster House 2000.

At the time I pointed out it has an inbuilt fire hazard because vertical steel girders going down to the ground support an impenetrable wire mesh. If the corridors of the building went on fire there would be no escape. I pointed this out but nothing has been done about it.

These are facts, and if they were within the ambit and responsibility of the Secretary General of the Houses of the Oireachtas, as proposed, it would be a much better, safer and safeguarding framework. As Deputy Flanagan stated it would depoliticise the accommodation of duly elected Members of Parliament who are solemnly doing their best to carry out their responsibilities. I am not playing around with geography, physics or psychology, I am being dead honest. It should not matter who belongs to what party or no party. It is helpful for members of parties to be grouped in buildings in easy access of one another, and I have no problem with this, but in exceptional circumstances, there should be above all courtesy, understanding and respect and there was not. This happens when there is too much concentration of power and authority, no matter who the office-holder happens to be. It is the framework which is dangerous. The framework of giving the allocation of office accommodation in a practicable way with the ultimate responsibility being assigned to a civil servant not exposed to political pressures and temptations is a very good idea. I humbly entreat that it be taken on board for the future. This is with an eye to the future, in the same way as one has fire escapes in buildings.

If we look at the facts and what happened, we see it could have been prevented. There was no need for it, but the temptation was there because an act of insubordination in the minds of the Whip and the Government took place and there was going to be a punishment for it. This is wrong. It is as plain as the nose on my face that this is wrong in the circumstances. Anybody from any other jurisdiction speaking any other language would clearly understand this. In the haste of the blizzard of trying to get stuff through legislatively, behaviours get heated, judgment goes missing and courtesy goes out the door, and this is not a good idea. We saw it today with regard to pressing a red or green button, when Deputy Ó Caoláin in the haste of getting to his seat mistakenly hit the wrong button. When things are done too hastily errors occur, such as bank guarantees, overnight liquidations of busted banks and the setting up of NAMA on half an hour's reading, when the papers in the hands of the Deputies in the 30th Dáil were still warm from the Xerox machine. The big thick documents-----

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