Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I find these reforms laughable. It is utterly absurd, at the end of this Government's tenure, to introduce gestures towards reform of the Dáil which it could have introduced at the beginning of its term. They are obviously easy to introduce and they can be introduced and passed in a few minutes, but they were not done before now because the heart of the Government was never in Dáil reform. It never had any interest in Dáil reform but it had an interest in gestures.

I am certainly not convinced of the merits of the first amendment, which is to elect the Ceann Comhairle in secret. Why do we need a secret ballot to elect the most important post in this House? What will happen will be that another insider will be elected, secret deals will be done behind closed doors and no member of the public will know for whom their Deputy voted in this important vote. They will be protected from that and the result will be that the post of Ceann Comhairle will be traded as part of the spoils of Government in the next Dáil. Do not tell me that people will break ranks with the instructions from their party. Let us look at some of the evidence for that. There is another election in which Deputies, and councillors, vote in secrecy, namely, the Seanad election. That is the most highly disciplined election of all, carried out under secret ballot where the seepage of votes from party loyalty is virtually zero. The instruction will go down from the parties to vote for whoever is the favoured person for Ceann Comhairle. It will be part of the usual trading that goes on for Cabinet Ministers and it will be a Government nominee, a Government favourite and member who is elected by secret ballot. There is no tradition in this House of the parties showing the sort of independence which is expected in this change.

The Government would have done far better to have opened up the very secretive Committee on Procedure and Privileges, which orders the business of the House and which is a complete and utter mystery to the public, in order that everybody could see what goes on in there.

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