Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad I objected to the Order of Business earlier in terms of the allocation of speaking time on this issue, as the original proposal would have seen the rest of the House confined to a mere 30 minutes, with the majority of the time given to the sub-committee members. As matters have turned out, the sub-committee members did not use all of their time and we may have enough time to make our contributions. However, the principle of seeking more time was right. I was not pressing for more time in order to take away from the work of the sub-committee members. Tremendous work has gone into this issue over the past weeks and members of all parties and none have given of their time voluntarily to try to make this place a bit more democratic and accountable. There is an urgency to the situation because it is so long now since the election was held and yet we are not up and running. For those of us on this side of the House, the structures around how we are going to get to that are not even clear. This situation needs to end quickly.

I echo the points made by previous speakers that the backdrop to this reform must be seen in the context that these are different times. We are now operating in a system that will be permanently different. The age of the dominance of political parties is over. This is not just an Irish phenomenon but a feature across Europe now. The age of the power of a strong majority is also confined to the dustbin of history. More minority governments, smaller coalitions and new formations coming into being are the order now of the world as we know it. Our structures here do not take account of the new reality taking place. We are at a juncture where we are transitioning from one type of Dáil to another, moving from a situation where the Government had all of the power and dictated everything to a situation where the Oireachtas has more of the power and there is more co-operation in that regard.

It is against that backdrop that we must measure the document before us. We must also measure it in the context of the points made about the need for radical reform. In that context, I welcome the majority of the proposals in the document. Many issues have been touched on already. I welcome the transparency that will be introduced in regard to Topical Issues and the improvements in regard to ministerial questions. I like the fact we will have extra time and that the inadequacy of responses, whether from the Taoiseach or a Minister, will be challenged more. This is really good, as is the empowerment of the Ceann Comhairle to insist on questions being answered. I like the proposal that a list will be published of complaints that have been upheld. However, the list should also reflect the number of complaints that have not been upheld. This would demonstrate how the Ceann Comhairle is implementing the new change in reality. This could be a good change, depending on how it is implemented.

I agree with the points made by Deputy Halligan in regard to the prayer and other broader reform. However, I will confine myself to the document before us and the proposals I do not agree with. I very much agree with and welcome the majority of the proposals. The biggest problem with the document is the halfway house measure that moves from the old system to the new system without fully taking into account how it will work. For me, it is not workable, fair or transparent. Agreeing we will have a new type of technical group, allowing for more than one such group and for different arrangements and coming together of smaller groupings or formations in the new fluid type of politics is better. However, how can we regulate that when something is changing and in flux? That is difficult. The only way of doing it is on a system of proportionality. There must be an incentive for people to group together, which will allow for a certain order in proceedings. However, what we have in this report is a halfway house.

I am particularly shocked by the example issued yesterday regarding how Leaders' Questions and Priority Questions might work in this new reformed Dáil. In the example given, Fianna Fáil was allowed two Leaders' Questions every day, while those of us on this side of the House, perhaps in a fairly big group, were getting one a week or one a fortnight. This is ludicrous. Informally, people might say that will not happen. However, that was an example produced at the sub-committee yesterday, based on the support of the sub-committee. We must have clarity on that. Even in the Thirtieth Dáil, when Fine Gael and the Labour Party were in opposition, and Fine Gael was a much bigger party than the Labour Party, Fine Gael did not get two Leaders' Questions while Labour Party got only one. It would be ludicrous to operate on that basis.

The reason this proposal has been put forward here is that the allocation of time is being dealt with on a strictly proportional basis. While we must have proportionality, it must be a balanced proportionality. It cannot be taken to ridiculous extremes that allow the biggest opposition party get the bulk, or 50%, of every allocation. That would be ludicrous. I was shocked that the Fianna Fáil members of the group agreed to that proposal and I wonder whether it was a payback for the support in abstaining from the vote for a Taoiseach. We must nip it in the bud.

It goes against all of the nice soundings from Deputy Micheál Martin about Dáil reform and about leading the way in that respect. It would not be fair and would be completely unworkable.

If we are in a new era and things are going to be different, how do we encompass that? The only way is to take the groups as they stand and to deal with them on a proportionate basis. By introducing discrimination into the system where parties take precedence, we undermine everything and it makes a mockery of the proposals. It says we are in a new system but we are not really in a new system. People could be elected as a political party comprising a group of five and they would take priority over a grouping of parties that might have more than five. There may be a broad group of parties and Independents in a group of, say, 20 but three or four groups of five come ahead of them in the order in which questions are taken, priority questions allocated and Leaders' Questions given. That is nonsense and nobody could stand over such a situation. I fully support the right of small political parties to regroup and come in under the banner of a new technical arrangement to give themselves an extra leg up in the pecking order on that basis but there has to be some consistency.

The briefings on how the committee was discussing how this reform might be implemented suggested it would be fairer and dealt with proportionately. If the idea is to give greater rights to party members than to Independent Deputies simply by virtue of their being in a political party, then we need to focus on that. The only way we can do that is by removing the relevant clause which gives parties precedence regardless of their size. That harks back to the old days and it is completely unworkable.

We do not know how many technical groups there will be and we will not really know until people align but that is not good enough either. We do not know how to align and do not know whether or not we are buying a pig in a poke. What is the position if there are 20 of us? Are we to be dealt with proportionately or not proportionately? What are we buying into? In the committee discussions there was a lot of talk about a system in which, for example, a group of between five and nine Members would be treated in a certain way and a group with between ten and 19, or 20 and 29, in another way. That is reasonable and fair and gives us an indication that if we regroup in a certain way there would be a predictable order. However, that is not reflected in the report. How can we sign up to it without the necessary clarity? It is not good enough to say we should form a technical group and then tell us what we are going to get.

Bigger groupings will impact better on the workings of the House, and that is not in any way to slag off anybody else. The past number of weeks have been incredibly difficult for everybody but today's discussion is borderline chaotic with the changes being contemplated. We do not have the regularity in the system we had before because we do not know the structures. I want that section of the report to go and we will move amendments to it on Tuesday if the committee does not agree with the proposal. I thank the committee sincerely for its work and I know it put in a lot of hours. There was really good co-operation and there is a lot of really good stuff in the report. However, it will be meaningless unless the other bit is added in as well.

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