Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this document and thank the members of the sub-Committee on Dáil Reform who put in a great deal of hard work into it. In particular, I thank Deputy Thomas Pringle, who represented the views of the Independents4Change group on the sub-committee. It is a very positive document, by and large, although I intend to come back to some of its negative aspects. It is going in the right direction. Page 2 of the report sets out some of the most positive aspects of the work of the sub-committee. In proposing "more power for parliament", the report goes some way towards allowing the Dáil to comply with the Constitution, which obliges it to make legislation. I welcome the decision to provide for a parliamentary legal adviser.

I am pleased that there will be an independent budgetary oversight committee which will be able to give particular advice to all of us in the Dáil. I hope to use that committee to examine measures passed by the Dáil that are not poverty-proofed, equality-proofed nor gender-proofed. Many measures are not looked at in terms of the amount of money that is spent needlessly as a result of failing to deal with problems like domestic violence. I have mentioned domestic violence repeatedly in this Chamber and I will continue to do so. The failure of the State to deal with domestic violence is costing €2.2 billion per annum. It seems on the basis of an extrapolation from Northern Irish figures that mental health problems which are not dealt with cost the economy over €10 billion per annum. This extraordinary figure was mentioned in A Vision for Change. I hope the new budgetary arrangements will allow Deputies to mention such facts in the expectation that they will be factored into budgetary proceedings. Níl a fhios agam cad atá i ndán don choiste nua don Ghaeilge, ach ar a laghad cuirim fáilte roimh bhunú an choiste sin.

I would like to mention a number of things about which I am very concerned. It occurs to me as I read through the work of the committee and as I watch politicians clapping themselves on the back in regard to reform that if Fine Gael and the Labour Party were seriously interested in reform, they would have introduced reforms over the last five years when they had an overwhelming majority in this House.

See this speech in context